Waters Introduces New Viridis Supercritical Fluid Chromatography Columns

Bringing TharSFC Instrumentation Together With SFC Columns to Create Integrated System Solution for Laboratory-Scale Purification

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Waters Corporation

Feb 16, 2010, 10:00 ET

MILFORD, Mass., Feb. 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Waters Corporation (NYSE: WAT) introduces today Viridis™ SFC columns, a new family of analytical and preparative supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) columns. Waters new Viridis SFC columns were developed to give laboratories using SFC a reliable source of high-quality columns for compound purification. Paired with Waters® TharSFC™ instrumentation laboratories now have a single source for both instrumentation and columns for their all-important purification work.

Representing the first of Waters column products for SFC, Viridis columns are available in two chemistries: 2-ethylpyridine and silica. Waters Viridis SFC Columns are manufactured by Waters ISO 9000 facilities under comprehensive quality guidelines and feature the company's patented preparative Optimum Bed Density (OBD™) technology, designed to produce mechanically stable columns with longer lifetimes.

Regarded as a "green" technology by many pharmaceutical laboratories, SFC is becoming the preferred approach for the isolation and purification of target compounds at the milligram to multi-gram scale.

SFC typically uses carbon dioxide (CO2) as the main "supercritical" mobile phase. As a result, SFC separations are faster, require shorter re-equilibration times and offer higher throughput than those typically associated with conventional liquid chromatography.

As a chromatographic mobile phase, CO2 is a low-cost solvent alternative to the organic solvents typically employed in the laboratory and is inert by nature and therefore safer to use. Using CO2, laboratories will typically experience a 70 – 95% reduction in solvent purchase and disposal costs over organic solvents.

Scientists at Pfizer(1) have reported that SFC has resulted in increased productivity and throughput for its Structure Elucidation Group laboratories -- notably a 50% reduction in the time needed to turn around the isolation portion of a structure elucidation project when compared to semi-preparative reversed-phase HPLC - which, in turn, has helped them expedite candidate decision making. With the introduction of Viridis columns, Waters now offers SFC and SFC/MS instrumentation and software for both analytical and preparative applications backed by Waters renowned service and support organizations.

For more information: www.waters.com/viridis

About Waters Corporation ( www.waters.com )

For 50 years, Waters Corporation (NYSE: WAT) creates business advantages for laboratory-dependent organizations by delivering practical and sustainable innovation to enable significant advancements in such areas as healthcare delivery, environmental management, food safety, and water quality worldwide.

Pioneering a connected portfolio of separations science, laboratory information management, mass spectrometry and thermal analysis, Waters technology breakthroughs and laboratory solutions provide an enduring platform for customer success.

With revenue of $1.5 billion in 2009 and 5,200 employees, Waters is driving scientific discovery and operational excellence for customers worldwide.

(1) Supercritical Fluid Chromatography (SFC) as an Isolation Tool for the Identification of Drug Related Impurities, Zelesky, Todd, Pfizer, Inc., American Pharmaceutical Review, Nov./Dec. 2008, Vol. 11 (7), pp. 56 – 62.

Waters, Viridis, OBD, TharSFC and The Science of What's Possible are trademarks of Waters Corporation.

SOURCE Waters Corporation