Phenomenex, Inc. and the Tecan Group (SIX Swiss Exchange: TECN) today announced a collaboration to co-market automated solid phase extraction (SPE) sample preparation solutions.

The two companies will jointly market Phenomenex Strata™ and Strata-X SPE sorbents adapted to Tecan’s Freedom EVO^® series of robotics workstations. The solution is especially geared to high-throughput customers in pharmaceutical research, clinical and food testing environments using mass spectrometry detection methods. As part of the global agreement, Tecan will provide the instruments and automation support, and Phenomenex will provide the extraction chemistries as well as application and method development through its PhenoLogix^SM group.

Solid phase extraction is a widely used sample preparation technique by which compounds in mixtures are separated, prior to chromatographic analysis. Phenomenex Strata and Strata-X SPE sorbents remove unwanted contaminants, including phospholipids, and are offered in a number of unique selectivities to cover a diverse range of analytes. SPE can be a time-consuming manual process that is prone to human errors resulting in additional time and costs for laboratories to confirm or repeat tests. Execution of this process on Tecan automated platforms combined with optimized conditions from PhenoLogix will decrease implementation efforts in the lab, increase throughput while reducing human error and enable sample traceability for regulated environments.

“We created this agreement with our high-throughput customers in mind,” commented Michael McGinley, core products manager for Phenomenex. “We can now bring them complete, automated solutions, simplifying the previously daunting task of adapting a manual method to laboratory automation. The engineers at Tecan have an amazing insight on how to optimally automate liquid handling and the Freedom EVO is a proven platform with an established track record for reliability.” 

“Phenomenex has a large customer base using their SPE products,” explained James O’Brien, Head of Clinical Diagnostics for Tecan. “By co-marketing our robotic workstations with their chemistries, we expect to expand our reach in these high-volume industries. The experts at Phenomenex and PhenoLogix have enhanced our knowledge of chromatography and enabled us to bring to market a product for mid- to high-throughput laboratories that increases the ROI of their high capital investment in mass spectrometry detection systems.”

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