WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Perfinity Biosciences Inc. announces the signing of an agreement with Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., the world leader in serving science, to co-market an automated protein sample preparation and analysis system.

This solution combines Perfinity's automated sample preparation platform with Thermo Fisher Scientific's liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry instrumentation. There are applications in biopharmaceutical process monitoring, protein drug development and biomarker discovery.

"Pharmaceutical manufacturers cannot wait for 24 hours to monitor the purity of each batch of protein-based product," said Robert Ellis, Perfinity Biosciences CEO. "When proteins oxidize, things can go bad quickly, and this is very costly. We developed our automated sample preparation platform to generate results quickly enough to let customers protect the value of each batch before it's too late. Now, with the Thermo Scientific LC and MS instruments, we offer a complete system from automated sample preparation through data reporting."

"A major goal at Thermo Fisher is to create efficiency and productivity throughout the biopharmaceutical value chain, and Perfinity's approach to in-process analysis meshes nicely with these plans," said Patrick Bennett, Thermo Fisher director of marketing, pharmaceutical industry.

Perfinity's sample preparation platform is an automated system that reduces the time required for the trypsin digestion step prior to mass spec analysis from approximately 18 hours using conventional techniques to less than two minutes. The proprietary three-column system is based on the company's trypsin columns, and also includes an automated workstation and software. Thermo Fisher is providing Thermo Scientific UltiMate 3000 UHPLC systems and a choice of Orbitrap-based hybrid or triple quadrupole mass spectrometers depending on customers' specific requirements.