HPLC market report: Cents and sensitivity

Ease of use, reliability and service and support are the main things that scientists consider when buying a new chromatography system. But previous familiarity with a particular brand is also a major factor.

Dr Ian Smith, associate director of the Baker Medical Research Institute in Melbourne, said that his priorities in purchasing new systems for chromatography recently included accuracy, sensitivity and reliability.

Dr Smith's team is using new systems from Agilent Technologies and Amersham Biosciences to do both large-scale purifications and analysis of peptides. The purchases included a robotics system from Amersham to handle high-throughput proteomics applications.

"We've invested in preparative HPLC equipment as well as analytical and microbore HPLC equipment," he said.

He said that factors influencing his purchase include having a strong technical support and service base in Melbourne, as well as access to the applications support network provided by the suppliers.

"One thing Agilent and Amersham have been good at is application support," he claimed.

"I would look at service and support, informed sales people, access to databases and technology that the company holds at its headquarters and early access to technology," Smith advised potential purchasers of chromatographic systems.

Smith said that trends in the instrumentation worth looking out for included the ability for instruments to handle small volumes and high throughput, as well as improved data reduction and data handling.

Sometimes scientists don't need all the new bells and whistles, however.

"If they kept everything the same and just updated the computers I would be happy with the system I bought in 1984," said Dr Greg Russell-Jones, director and VP of targeted pharmaceuticals at Access Pharmaceuticals.

He added that older instruments were easier to use and easier to do troubleshooting.

Russell-Jones said that the decision for the company to buy two new a href=" http://www.waters.com/WatersDivision/waters_website/home/default.asp">Waters HPLC systems was influenced by already having older instruments from Waters. He added that backwards compatibility was a major factor.

He cited ease of use, access to service and training and ease of generating reports as being his other major criteria in choosing the system.

Russell-Jones said that the instruments would be used for both analytical and preparative purposes.

Heather Patsiouras, analytical systems manager at Mimotopes, agreed that ease of use was a big advantage. She said she also believed that "all-in-one-box" systems were a big plus, having invested in a couple of Waters Alliance systems recently.

"It's so much easier to have uniformity between instruments," she said, explaining results from different instruments could be compared with a greater level of confidence.

Patsiouras also said that familiarity with Waters instruments was another factor in the purchase.

Kinacia's Dr Gregg Smith, who heads up Project Management for the company, said that prospective buyers of chromatography instruments should shop around before purchasing.

"It would be very wise to seek advice from others with similar chromatographic interests," he suggested.

Smith said that he considered both Waters and Agilent systems, eventually settling on Waters due to previous use of their instruments, but noted that both companies provided excellent support to the decision making process.

Kinacia uses LC/MS systems for various types of qualitative analysis of their small molecule drug candidates, including analysis of biological fluids from in vivo studies.

Dr Per Hansen, who is a senior scientist in CSL's Animal Health R&D division, said there were two main points he would advise prospective purchasers to consider before making a decision.

"The first on the list is ease of use. If there is a steep learning curve it puts people off," he said.

"Secondly, you have to make sure it does what you want."

He said that Amersham Bioscience provided him with a demo model of the AKTA FPLC system that helped him make a decision to purchase the system, which he will use for R&D purposes.