Waters Corporation used the 74th ASMS Conference on Mass Spectrometry and Allied Topics in San Diego to showcase a broad mass spectrometry portfolio spanning new instrument launches, a recently introduced charge detection system, and integrated biologics workflow demonstrations across its platform suite.
The showing comes just four months after Waters completed its combination with the Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions businesses of Becton, Dickinson and Company, a transaction that closed February 9, 2026 and established four new divisions within the company: Waters Analytical Sciences, Waters Biosciences, Waters Advanced Diagnostics, and Waters Materials Sciences. The ASMS 2026 portfolio sits within Waters Analytical Sciences and reflects the company's stated push to bridge discovery, development, and regulated compliance across a wider range of laboratory settings.
Two new instruments: Cyclic IMS P20 and Xevo MRT P10
The centerpiece announcements at ASMS 2026 are two new high-resolution platforms that address structurally distinct scientific problems.
Cyclic IMS P20 MS: structural and spatial omics
The Waters Cyclic IMS P20 Mass Spectrometer is a high-resolution structural and spatial omics platform combining multipass Cyclic Ion Mobility Spectrometry with an expanded suite of fragmentation, probing, and imaging capabilities. Waters states the system delivers more than 10 times greater MS/MS sensitivity than its predecessor and extends the upper mass range by more than 50% to over 100 kDa, supporting the analysis of larger and more heterogeneous therapeutic targets including protein complexes and higher-order assemblies.
Two new capabilities underpin the platform's structural biology performance. Dynamic Field Declustering is a tunable device within the StepWave ion guide that removes salts, adducts, detergents, and micelles from native mass spectrometry samples, improving apparent peak resolution to reveal glycoforms and structural details in samples such as monoclonal antibodies and membrane proteins. Wideband Enhancement boosts fragment ion spectrum sensitivity and supports higher sequence coverage in top-down studies. Applied together, they enable resolution of conformational sub-populations and assembly states using multipass ion mobility, providing structural insight beyond what mass alone can reveal.
For MS imaging, the Cyclic IMS P20 integrates both DESI XS and MALDI XS in a unified workflow, enabling simultaneous analysis of lipids, small molecules, and proteins from a single tissue section. Waters positions this as a true spatial multiomics capability, with advanced ion mobility resolving complex and overlapping signals that conventional imaging cannot distinguish.
"Waters recognizes that advanced tools for structural and spatial omics play a critical role in delivering therapeutic breakthroughs," said James Hallam, VP and General Manager, Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry, Waters Analytical Sciences. The Cyclic IMS P20 MS is expected to be available globally from September 2026.
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Xevo MRT P10 MS: high-throughput multiomics
The Xevo MRT P10 Mass Spectrometer is a high-resolution Quadrupole Time-of-Flight (QToF) benchtop system aimed at researchers needing deep proteome coverage, high-quality lipidomics, and metabolomics data from a single platform. Waters claims 20 times higher MS/MS sensitivity and twice the acquisition speed of its predecessor, and states the system identified up to 40% more lipids than the most competitive alternative system in comparative lipidomic profiling by LC-MS/MS.
At ASMS, Waters presented poster data applying the platform to plasma samples from patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, where it surfaced disease-discriminating biomarkers and pathway-level changes, including inflammation dysregulation and altered glycosphingolipid, linoleic, and arachidonic acid metabolism. The imaging configuration, Xevo MRT P10 MS with DESI XS, delivers molecular imaging at up to 200 Hz, enabling whole-organ imaging in hours rather than days while preserving fragile samples.
Hallam described the platform as combining enhanced sensitivity, the fastest benchtop acquisition speeds in the industry, and advanced acquisition modes, along with a new benchmark for MS imaging speed via the DESI XS. "This platform empowers researchers to see more biology, accelerate discovery, and make confident decisions," he said. "The Xevo MRT P10 MS represents a powerful step forward for our customers working to advance multiomics research and life-changing therapies."
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CDMS takes gene therapy characterization to ASMS
The Waters Xevo Charge Detection Mass Spectrometer (CDMS), launched in October 2025, received its first major ASMS platform showcase this year. The system uses an Electrostatic Linear Ion Trap (ELIT) to provide direct, single-ion mass measurement of mega-mass biomolecules including protein complexes, nucleic acids, and viral vector capsids that exceed the practical measurement range of conventional mass spectrometers.
For AAV gene therapy applications, the Xevo CDMS can distinguish between empty, partial, full, and overfull capsids in under 10 minutes per sample and requires up to 100 times less sample volume than current comparable methods. These are not incremental gains: AAV capsid fill ratio is a critical quality attribute for gene therapy manufacturing, and existing analytical options have required either significant material consumption or extended run times.
Lexeo Therapeutics, a gene therapy developer focused on inherited cardiac diseases, offered a clinical perspective on the technology. "CDMS enables characterization of AAV gene therapies during development and manufacturing that previously was not possible," the company stated. "This is a step change in analytical capability and allows our customers to make more effective and safer medicines, while giving them peace of mind and competitive advantage."
The University of Guelph demonstrated a complementary structural biology application at ASMS, showing how CDMS resolves heterogeneity in protein interaction studies that compromises existing MS systems. Coupling CDMS with cryo-TEM, the researchers reported, extends the insight available from time- and cost-intensive structural studies by revealing protein system complexity that neither technique achieves alone.
Xevo TQ Absolute XR and BioAccord anchor regulated workflows
Two established platforms round out Waters' ASMS 2026 portfolio. The Xevo TQ Absolute XR Mass Spectrometer, launched at ASMS 2025 and featuring a StepWave XR Ion Guide that delivers up to six times greater performance robustness than its predecessor, is being showcased this year for drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics (DMPK) applications. Paired with the ACQUITY UPLC System and waters_connect software for quantitation, the combination supports high-sensitivity measurement of drugs and translational biomarkers in complex matrices, including antisense oligonucleotide quantification in human plasma and lipidomic profiling for drug exposure and mechanism-of-action studies.
The BioAccord LC-MS System, Waters' compliance-ready biologics platform, is featured at ASMS 2026 as part of an integrated analytical workflow covering protein therapeutics, genetic medicine, and bioprocessing. Waters is demonstrating how the system bridges discovery and routine compliance, with applications spanning multi-attribute protein analysis, high-throughput oligonucleotide impurity screening, and RNA mapping. The emphasis is on accessibility across experience levels: the platform is designed to deliver rigorous analytical results without requiring deep mass spectrometry expertise from every user.
What this means for labs evaluating the Waters portfolio
Waters' ASMS 2026 lineup spans a wider analytical range than most single-vendor showcases at the conference, which creates both opportunity and complexity for lab managers evaluating platforms. The Cyclic IMS P20 and Xevo MRT P10 target distinct ends of the performance spectrum, from high-end structural and spatial biology to high-throughput benchtop multiomics, and both carry performance claims that will require independent validation as the instruments enter the market.
Understanding ion mobility spectrometry is increasingly relevant for labs working in structural biology, protein characterization, and native MS, and the Cyclic IMS P20 represents Waters' most capable offering in that space to date. The imaging integration is particularly notable: combining DESI and MALDI in a single workflow removes the platform switching that has complicated spatial multiomics experiments and adds analytical value per sample.
For gene therapy and large-molecule biopharma labs, the Xevo CDMS addresses a genuinely unmet need in AAV characterization. The characterization of viral vector capsids has historically required multiple orthogonal methods; a system that can resolve fill states in under 10 minutes with substantially reduced sample consumption has direct operational value.
The broader question for lab managers is whether Waters' post-BD-combination scale translates into stronger application support and integration across the portfolio. That is a 12-to-18-month question that ASMS alone cannot answer.
For more information on Waters' full ASMS 2026 portfolio, visit waters.com.
References
Waters Corporation. "Waters Unveils Cyclic IMS P20 MS: The New Benchmark in Structural and Spatial Omics." PR Newswire, June 1, 2026. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/waters-unveils-cyclic-ims-p20-ms-the-new-benchmark-in-structural-and-spatial-omics-302786888.html
Waters Corporation. "Waters Launches Charge Detection Mass Spectrometry Technology to Accelerate the Development of Next-Generation Biotherapeutics." PR Newswire, October 13, 2025. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/waters-launches-charge-detection-mass-spectrometry-technology-to-accelerate-the-development-of-next-generation-biotherapeutics-302581988.html
Waters Corporation. "Waters Completes Combination with BD's Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions Businesses." PR Newswire, February 9, 2026. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/waters-completes-combination-with-bds-biosciences--diagnostic-solutions-businesses-302682583.html
