AstraZeneca and Labcyte agree drug development alliance

AstraZeneca has agreed a new collaboration with life science company Labcyte that will serve to accelerate future drug development efforts.

The aim of the partnership is to combine acoustic dispensing techniques with mass spectrometry, in order to expand spectrometry-based analysis capabilities throughout the entire drug discovery and development process.

Labcyte has created Echo, an acoustic liquid handling system that uses soundwaves to dispense a wide variety of liquids in nanolitre increments, as well as techniques for the direct loading of samples into mass spectrometers.

This will help to streamline processes and generate better results with lower costs compared to traditional systems, which are prone to transfer errors and sample contamination.

Mike Snowden, AstraZeneca's vice-president of discovery sciences, said: "Combining acoustic delivery with mass spectrometry has the potential to open up new areas of science through transformational improvements in sampling rates and reductions in sampling volumes."

This comes after AstraZeneca announced earlier this month that it has licensed a new ovarian cancer therapy from Merck Sharp and Dohme.