Waters Corporation has inked an exclusive agreement with Spark Holland BV (Emmen, The Netherlands). The pact will allow its Acquity Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography (UPLC) system fully compatible with Spark Holland Symbiosis Online Solid Phase Extraction Technology.

The Waters' Acquity UPLC Online SPE Manager is based on a special version of the highly-popular Spark Holland online SPE technology, which Spark Holland is making available to Waters exclusively. High-throughput analytical laboratories can now streamline sample preparation and analysis time and generate test results faster than before. The integrated system is sold and supported by Waters worldwide.

“Combining our UPLC technology with Spark Holland online SPE technology offers compelling benefits to high-throughput laboratories intent on producing the highest-quality test results, quickly and reproducibly for UPLC/MS analyses. Automating the process of sample preparation can help laboratories improve turnaround times, reduce errors and the control costs,” said Ian King, vice president, Separations Technologies, Waters Division.

Coupling online SPE to UPLC efficiently, while maintaining the unique benefit of disposable SPE cartridges, is a major technological challenge that performs best in a completely integrated fashion, said Rob van der Knaap, president, Spark Holland.

Leading laboratories use Spark Holland automated sample preparation devices to streamline sample preparation and analysis for routine, high throughput applications. Scientists employ online solid phase extraction when removing involatile salts, ion suppressing species and other interferences from samples prior to analysis. It reduces analysis time, decreases errors caused by manual SPE procedures, as well as provides a significant improvement in selectivity and concentrates analytes for better sensitivity.

Covance Inc., one of the world’s largest drug development services companies, employs automated online SPE and reports that it frequently allows quantification of even very large peptides down to the 10 pg/mL level in human plasma.

In 2007, Waters and Spark Holland announced the availability of the Waters Oasis brand sorbent line for a newly-designed Spark Holland 800-series format tray for the Spark Holland Symbiosis and Prospekt-2 systems. For the new system special UPLC cartridges are offered as well as novel applications. Spark Holland intends to expand its cartridge product line and applications portfolio continuously to serve clinical, pharmaceutical, food safety, and environmental control laboratories.

The three-decade-old Spark Holland, a privately held firm is known for its HPLC and UHPLC instrument innovation, specialising in the field of autosampling and online solid phase extraction and, more recently, online dried blood spot analysis. Today, it is a leading OEM supplier of front-end UHPLC and online solid phase extraction instruments, working according to ISO 13485 and, when required, delivering CE-IVD compliant modules for use in clinical systems.

Waters Corporation is a pioneering company with a portfolio of separations science, laboratory information management, mass spectrometry and thermal analysis systems. In 2011, the company generated revenues to the tune of $1.85 billion.