HPLC market report: The smaller picture

The big trend in liquid chromatography instrumentation is the ever-shrinking sample size, according to leading manufacturers of chromatographic instruments.

Chromatography encompasses a number of separation methods, ranging from large-scale preparative column chromatography used in purification and manufacturing processes, to the widely used high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) and capillary chromatography platforms.

Stephen Dutton, liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry specialist for Agilent Technologies in Australia, says that ever-smaller sample sizes are a driving force on the development of new HPLC systems.

"The trend in bioscience is how to work with smaller samples of materials," he says.

The major manufacturers of HPLC instruments have all jumped on the bandwagon, with instruments capable of nanolitre-per-minute flows.

Dutton adds that these abilities have required completely new instruments capable of coping with the small samples, including pumps, tubing, and columns specially designed for nanolitre flows and detectors sensitive enough to measure the tiny quantities of molecules in a sample.

Mass spectrometry has become an integral part of many systems as an extremely sensitive detection method.

Even in the bigger chromatography systems, small is beautiful. According to Paul McInnis, the managing director for Waters Australia, the trend is going towards using smaller columns that require less solvent. This creates savings on the amount of solvent used and also on disposal of waste solvent, as well as increasing the sensitivity of the separations.

Versatility and flexibility in chromatography systems are also advantages for users. Many systems available now are modular, allowing the users to purchase and configure the system to suit their individual purposes. On the other hand, out-of-the-box systems are also popular choices.

Another important feature of chromatography systems is the software used to run them. One key aspect of this is the ease of use, with simple graphical displays and logical menu choices.

Another feature of chromatography system software is more important for drug development and manufacturing purposes. Recent regulatory requirements from the US Food and Drug Administration include security measures to protect data integrity and provide traceability of results from raw data to analysed answer.

In addition, ability to access and store data through enterprise-wide networks and Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) becomes important for pharmaceutical companies.

However, suppliers of instrumentation agreed that very few Australian companies required these features at present.

HPLC suppliers

• Agilent Technologies Instrument series: 1100 Series HPLC Capabilities/Applications: HPLC Modular systems, Integrated systems
• Amersham Biosciences Instrument series: ÄKTA platform Capablilities/Applications: Modular systems for LC and HPLC, Preparative and analytical systems Instrument series: Ettan platform Capabilities/Applications: LC-MS integrated system, Proteomics
• Applied Biosystems Instrument series: BioCad 700E workstation Capabilities/Applications: LC integrated system, Analytical and preparative Instrument series: Vision Workstation Capabilities/Applications: LC integrated system incl. robotics sample handling, Analytical high throughput Instrument series: API series Capabilities/Applications: LC/MS integrated systems, Analytical systems
• BioRad Instrument series: BioLogic DuoFlow Capabilities/Applications: HPLC and LC, Analytical and preparative Instrument series: BioLogic LP Capabilities/Applications: LC Preparative/purification
• Waters Instrument series: Breeze HPLC systems Capabilities/Applications: Integrated HPLC systems, Analytical Instrument series: Alliance HPLC systems Capabilities/Applications: Integrated HPLC systems, Analytical, high throughput available Instrument series: CapLC HPLC systems Capabilities/Applications: Integrated Capillary LC system, Analytical, can add MS Instrument series: PrepLC system Capabilities/Applications: Modular LC systems Preparative
• Beckman Coulter Instrument series: System Gold HPLC Capabilities/Applications: LC systems Analytical and preparative systems
• Shimadzu Instrument series: LC-2010 Capabilities/Applications: HPLC integrated system Analytical Instrument series: LCMS-2010 Capabilities/Applications: HPLC/MS integrated system, Analytical Instrument series: VP series Capabilities/Applications: Analytical Instrument series: Analytical to preparative system Capabilities/Applications: Modular HPLC systems Analytical and preparative