Advance Nanotech, Inc. (OTCBB: AVNA) is pleased to announce that Owlstone has released certain results of a pharmaceutical application study using its Ultra-FAIMS technology. The results were made public at the ASMS 2010 annual conference and can be found on Owlstone's website under the Owlstone twitter feed (OwlstoneNano).
The aim of the study was to test whether the Owlstone Ultra-FAIMS device could provide useful ion separation for pharmaceutical applications. The results demonstrated that the Ultra-FAIMS device does deliver additional selectivity that can enhance pharmaceutical analyses by reducing or eliminating background noise and by separating co-eluding ions.
"The pharmaceutical industry represents a large market with a real need for highly sensitive and selective detection capabilities," commented Jon Buttles, Principal Executive Officer of Advance Nanotech. "Owlstone's technology is ideally suited for pharmaceutical applications in areas such as manufacturing process lines and contamination-related prevention. In process lines, Owlstone's technology can further optimize manufacturing throughput which results in more efficient pharmaceutical manufacturing. As a preventative measure, Owlstone's technology may be used to detect impurities and contaminants that potentially have the ability to shut down process lines and could cost pharmaceutical companies millions of dollars in clean up, regulatory fines and lost revenues."
Ultra-Field Asymmetric Ion Mobility Spectrometry (Ultra-FAIMS) is a high speed, gas phase ion separation technique developed by Owlstone. When interfaced to a Mass Spectrometer, the Ultra-FAIMS device provides extra separation that can benefit a wide range of liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) analyses. FAIMS filters orthogonally to both LC and MS, so it can reduce interference from complex backgrounds and separate analytes that are difficult to distinguish using only LC-MS.
The pharmaceutical data was presented at the 58th American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) Conference on Mass Spectrometry and Allied Topics held in May 2010 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The ASMS was formed in 1969 to promote and disseminate knowledge of mass spectrometry and allied topics. Membership includes over 7,500 scientists involved in research and development. Members come from academic, industrial and governmental laboratories. Their interests include advancement of techniques and instrumentation in mass spectrometry, as well as fundamental research in chemistry, geology, forensics, biological sciences and physics. ASMS sponsors the Annual Conference on Mass Spectrometry and Allied Topics that is attended by more than 6,500 scientists.
Source: http://www.owlstonenanotech.com/