Caliper Launches New LabChip(R) High Throughput Screening System
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Sept. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Caliper Technologies Corp. (Nasdaq: CALP - news) announced today the launch of the Caliper 250 HTS system, the company's new LabChip®-based high throughput screening (HTS) system. The Caliper 250 HTS system, which includes instruments for assay development and screening, a menu of chips that perform standard assays, as well as Caliper supplied support services and custom solutions, represents a new, microfluidic chip-based approach to high throughput drug screening. Customers can purchase the new system directly from Caliper, marking the company's conversion to a full-scale commercial HTS products business.* (Photo: newscom.com )
Caliper's LabChip® systems miniaturize, integrate and automate high volume screening to enable researchers to perform complex, multi-step experiments in a fraction of the time with far less user intervention, using tiny quantities of precious reagents and producing high quality, reproducible results. The Caliper 250 HTS system debuted this week at the Society for Biomolecular Screening (SBS) 2001 Conference in Baltimore, the industry's largest forum for high throughput screening technologies. Caliper anticipates that it will begin shipping the new HTS systems in November 2001.
``Caliper's new LabChip® high throughput screening system represents an important advance in our commercial strategy to be the microfluidic market leader and, for the first time, offers customers the ability to purchase HTS systems, services and custom solutions directly from Caliper's catalog to support their screening needs,'' said Dan Kisner, M.D., President and Chief Executive Officer.
``LabChip® technology has the potential to bring dramatic improvements to fundamental processes of drug discovery by offering unprecedented levels of efficiency, productivity, quality and cost-savings,'' continued Dr. Kisner. ``Caliper's LabChip® HTS systems will enable screening laboratories to achieve more consistent and accurate hit and lead identification information, generate the precise, reliable, high quality information they need to make better informed decisions earlier in the discovery process and, ultimately, accelerate the process of bringing important new medicines to patients in need.''
The Caliper 250 HTS System
The Caliper 250 HTS system performs screening experiments in a serial, continuous flow fashion inside the microchannels of the chip, constituting a closed, controlled environment. The chip employs a proprietary capillary-like sample access system, called a ``sipper,'' through which just nanoliters of test compounds are drawn into the channels of the chip from microwell plates. There, they are mixed with equally tiny quantities of the target biomolecule and other reagents for screening. The Caliper 250 HTS system uses a 4-sipper chip capable of performing tens of thousands of experiments per chip per day, depending upon assay conditions, and offers walkaway automation and minimal user intervention
The key benefits of the Caliper HTS system include:
* Broad functionality: the Caliper 250 HTS system performs fluorogenic and electrophoretic mobility assays for multiple target classes including kinases, proteases and phosphatases and, in the near future, will perform cell-based assays including calcium flux and membrane potential. To perform a different assay, the user simply replaces one chip with another, quickly and efficiently;
* Greatly simplified assay development: for valuable target classes such as kinases, the laborious, time-consuming step of developing antibodies is eliminated, allowing assay development to take place in a few weeks rather than months. In addition, the system facilitates the direct monitoring of the reaction, enabling fast and easy optimization of assay conditions.
* Significantly reduced usage of targets and reagents: using a model fluorogenic assay, Caliper has demonstrated that a million compound screen can be run using just a microgram of target. Such low target consumption enables screeners to overcome the scale-up challenges of difficult-to-obtain targets, opening the potential to perform assays that might not be possible with conventional HTS systems;
* High quality, reproducible results: Caliper's system has demonstrated the ability to accurately identify inhibitors having a wide range of activities, identifying compounds with an inhibition threshold of only 10% with 97% accuracy. Conventional screening technology is generally unable to achieve this level of precision.
* Ease of use: the Caliper 250 HTS system has few moving parts, requires little user set-up time and provides eight hours of walk-away automation.
Caliper is commercializing its HTS systems through its own sales and marketing force, Caliper Direct. The company is also offering a full range of customer and field support services, and a specialized HTS solutions program that includes specific assay development support, early access to beta products and customized microfluidic solutions for customers' individual research challenges. Customers interested in learning more about Caliper's LabChip® HTS products can call 1-888-755-0626 to speak with a Caliper Direct salesperson, or email Caliper at hts@calipertech.com. Information about all of Caliper's LabChip® products is available on the company's website at www.calipertech.com. |
