GEN-MKT-18-7897-A
Feb 12, 2025 | Blogs, Discovery, Echo® MS+ system, Pharma, QA/QC | 0 comments
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On average, it takes 10-15 years and 1-2 billion dollars to approve a new pharmaceutical for clinical use. Since approximately 90% of new drug candidates fail in clinical development, the ability to make early, informed and accurate decisions on the safety and efficacy of new hits and leads is key to increasing the chances of success.
To achieve this drug discovery assays require speed and accuracy, but often scientists must compromise on one of these requirements to cope with the thousands of samples that need to be analyzed.
The Echo® MS+ system allows pharmaceutical companies to make data-driven decisions early in the drug discovery process, saving time and money, and potentially getting their drug to market faster than with more traditional approaches. Common analytical techniques such as LC-MS or fluorescence are limited by either sample throughput or accuracy of results.
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The Echo® MS+ system uses acoustic ejection mass spectrometry (AEMS) technology. Samples are placed into a compatible well plate which is held in the Echo® MS+ system’s autosampler. Here sound energy is applied to the bottom of each well individually. The sound energy causes reproducible droplets to be ejected from the well for capture in a carrier solvent of the OPI for dilution and transfer to the mass spectrometer’s source. From this point, the diluted sample is ionized using conventional electrospray ionization, ready for detection.
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In biopharmaceutical development, sequence variants (SV) are considered an inherent risk of producing complex proteins in living systems. Sequence variants are unintended changes to the amino acid sequence of a biotherapeutic and can be caused by errors in transcription or translation in the host cell, or cell culture and process conditions. Detailed analysis of SVs is important in process and product development to ensure the drug’s safety and efficacy. Even low‑level sequence variants can have significant implications for product quality, safety, and efficacy, making their accurate detection and characterization a critical requirement across development, process optimization, and regulatory submission.
CE‑SDS remains a cornerstone assay for characterizing fragmentation, aggregation, and product‑related impurities in therapeutic proteins. UV detection has been the long‑standing standard. However, it frequently struggles with baseline noise, limited sensitivity for minor fragments, and subjective integration.
At SCIEX, innovation doesn’t stop at instruments; it extends to how you interact with your LC-MS/MS or CE systems every day. That’s why we’re excited to introduce the SCIEX Now spring 2026 improvements: a set of meaningful enhancements shaped directly by your feedback.
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