UPLC Throughput Improvements Offer Much Faster Turnaround Times
Posted by Dan Williams on Tue, May 25, 2010
Like most analytical CRO's, Diteba relies upon their High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) systems as being the workhorse of the laboratory. From assay and purity work on raw materials, to stability sample testing, to bioanalytical analyses, the HPLC instruments are often critical to Diteba's and our sponsor's success.
When we initially equipped the laboratory, a significant evaluation was undertaken with respect to current HPLC technology. One of the goals was to evaluate the latest technology on the market and how that could enhance laboratory productivity, improve assay resolution and sensitivity while still remaining to be robust and flexible technology. With those goals in mind, Diteba invested in several Waters Corp.TM AcQuity Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography (UPLC) systems.
Although the concept of "Microbore LC" is not new, making it a practical reality was a challenge. The AcQuity UPLC technology offers a new category of analytical separation science while maintaining the practicality of HPLC technology. AcQuity UPLC systems are designed to reduce run times ten fold, while greatly improving resolution and sensitivity. The technology combines AcQuity UPLC column chemistries with ultra-low dwell volumes, very high pressure pumping systems and low dispersion, high speed detectors.
The result is a very significant improvement in throughput, sensitivity and resolution. Quoting Dr. Steve Li, Diteba's Laboratory Operations Manager: "We find the UPLC systems to be equivalent to 3 or 4 regular HPLC systems in terms of productivity. The resolution and sensitivity improvements have also allowed us to place many projects on UPLC, which would not have been possible with normal HPLC systems. Having now placed different projects on the UPLC systems, including pre-clinical and clinical bioanalytical projects, the AcQuity column chemistries also seem to be more robust and forgiving".
The resulting improvement in throughput now means better turnaround times for Diteba's sponsors. The more recent enhancement to Diteba's UPLC capability has been adopting a wider variety of detectors and interfacing with MS/MS.
Example of Turbinafene HCl Runs on HPLC and on UPLC:
In order to demonstrate improvements in UPLC technology, we prepared test runs on both a UPLC system and HPLC system using a Turbinafene HCl stability-indicating assay. The comparison below from the Turbinafene HCl assay shows a resulting improvement in speed of greater than six times and sensitivity of almost 2.5 times of the UPLC system over the HPLC system.
If you have had similar experiences in evaluating laboratory equipment, we'd like to hear from you.
