£0.5M investment in mass spectrometry support accelerates biologics development and approval  

Craigavon, Northern Ireland – 26 January 2021 – Almac Sciences, a member of the Almac Group, has announced additional  expansion of its biologics testing laboratory with significant investment in mass spectrometry equipment.

The new high-resolution mass spectrometer has been installed at Almac’s global headquarters, located in Northern Ireland, and will support its biologics offering for the analysis of peptides, proteins, glycoproteins and antibody products. This adds to the existing industry support at its new biologic testing laboratory based in Athlone, Ireland, announced just three months ago, which supports QC release and characterisation of biologics.

The £500,000 investment in a Thermo Orbitrap LC-MS instrument substantially increases the company’s capabilities in solving biologic analytical challenges and underlines Almac’s commitment to providing the latest in cutting-edge analytical solutions, equipment and facilities for its global client base. The instrument is capable of offering a complete analysis package to cGMP including amino acid sequencing, peptide mapping, disulfide bridge analysis using MS and MS/MS, glycosylation analysis, identification of post-translational modifications e.g. acetylation, phosphorylation in addition to biomarker discovery.

With this additional service, clients will benefit from an extended range of mass spectrometry services including the quantitation of genotoxic impurities, structure elucidation, isotopic purity determinations…