"Pharmaceutical industry in Asia Pacific region is booming"

Robert Solazzo, business/sales development manager, pharmaceutical solutions, Asia Pacific Life Sciences and Chemical Analysis group, Agilent Technologies

How do you see the pharmaceutical solutions arena developing/evolving in the coming years? What are the current trends?

The pharmaceutical industry is currently under significant pressure to reduce overall costs as well as to ensure regulatory compliance and drug safety. This trend is worldwide. They are looking at increased productivity from the laboratory and to this end, reduced cost per analysis while still maintaining compliance with regulatory requirements.

What kind of growth/market do you currently see in this segment in different countries/regions? How is India in particular and the Asia Pacific region in general placed?

The pharmaceutical industry in the Asia Pacific region is booming, especially in China and India. There is significant investment from foreign pharmaceutical companies throughout the region and domestic manufacturers are also going through an expansion phase to keep pace with increased demand. India is well positioned to take advantage of increased demand in affordable medicines and the growth in the domestic industry is already very well documented. India has a strong core competency in producing high quality and affordable medicines as well as active pharmaceutical ingredients to supply overseas markets.

How do the new Liquid Chromatography series (1200 and 6000) further facilitate analysis? What are some of their salient features?

The 1200 Series LC and 6000 Series LCMS are designed for reliability, robust operation and low cost of ownership while maximizing overall performance for confidence in the data generated by these platforms. The 1200 LC builds on the performance of the 1100 Series that sold over 60000 systems worldwide. The 1200 is fully compatible with the 1100 while offering superior performance in terms of speed and resolution. The new 1200 Series Rapid Resolution System provides up to 20 times faster analysis and 60 percent higher resolution than conventional LC, making it twice as fast and three times as precise as the competition's best systems. The system can also still run any traditional LC method, making it the most flexible LC on the market. Further, a special high-throughput configuration of the 1200 Rapid Resolution system allows sequential execution of more than 2,000 samples per day on a single system - without giving up data quality or method flexibility. The Push for Help function is unique in the industry. With a click of a mouse, instrument configuration details, recent logbook, and user contact information are accurately transmitted over a secure connection to an Agilent customer support center for immediate attention. The system is designed for maximum sample throughput, highest possible uptime and best performance while still being able to maintain regulatory compliance.

The LCMS platform has been designed for usability and performance, making it accessible to a wider range of potential users. This is achieved with the follow key, three design features:

• Agilent's proprietary autotunetechnology

Agilent's autotune technology automatically calibrates the instrument with the click of the mouse, optimizing for sensitivity and mass accuracy. It has the potential to repeatedly save customers hours of tedious work or delay.

• Compatibility with Agilent's multimode source and HPLC-Chiptechnology

All Agilent 6000 Series mass spectrometers will be compatible with the Agilent multi-mode ion source, the first and only technology capable of simultaneously operating electrospray ionization (ESI) and atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI), saving repetition of experiments; and the Agilent HPLC-Chip/MS system, which replaces traditional columns with a credit-card-sized chip that eliminates 50 percent of the fittings and connections typically required in an LC/MS system, significantly simplifying workflow and increasing sensitivity and reliability.

There is integrated LC and MS software for instrument control and data analysis. Each instrument comes with integrated LC and MS software for a single point of instrument control and data analysis. In conjunction with these products, Agilent is introducing a range of application-specific software programs that allow researchers to quickly get answers to the real problems they are trying to solve. All use the most modern, industry-standard development tools and a new ".Net"-based MS data processing environment.

Rolly Dureha