Thermo's New QuickQuan Software Provides Fast, Automated, LC-MS/MS Quantification For High-Throughput Drug Discovery

Orlando, FL - Thermo Electron Corporation introduces its new QuickQuan software for automating high-throughput LC-MS/MS assays in early drug discovery. The combination of QuickQuan's rapid compound tune and optimization time with Thermo's Finnigan TSQ Quantum triple quadrupole mass spectrometer is key to automatically assessing new chemical entities (NCEs) in early drug development assays such as metabolic stability. The innovative QuickQuan software will be showcased at Thermo's booth #3733 at PITTCON 2006, Orange County Convention Center, Orlando, Florida, March 13-17.

QuickQuan delivers rapid LC-MS/MS optimization through use of an automated on-line infusion mode and valve switching design. This allows for precise auto-tuning with high sensitivity that, consequently, maximizes successful automated quantification of chemically diverse compounds. All analytical information is stored either in Microsoft Access or Oracle databases, which facilitates rapid data exchange across global networks.

"Pharmaceutical researchers tell us that manual LC-MS/MS method development can be time consuming for analysts considering, for example, that it may take as long as five to ten hours to process 30 compounds" says Lester Taylor Ph.D., global product marketing director, Life Sciences Mass Spectrometry for Thermo. "Thermo's QuickQuan solution minimizes manual intervention and significantly increases productivity in demanding, high-throughput applications such as CACO-2 assays by as much as 75%."

SOURCE: Thermo Electron Corporation