This story has been updated to include the price of the acquisition.
NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) — Waters announced today that it has acquired the exclusive rights to Prosolia's desorption electrospray ionization (DESI) technology for mass spectrometry applications.
The technology, which was developed at Purdue University, uses a charged jet of solvent depositing micro-droplets onto a sample's surface where analytes are desorbed into a gas phase at ambient pressure and temperature, according to Waters. The analytes are then analyzed by mass spectrometry.
Waters said it has acquired the intellectual property rights to the technology for mass spec from Prosolia and the Purdue Research Foundation for $30 million. Waters has also signed a licensing agreement with Purdue under which it will provide the university with one of its Synapt G2-Si mass spec instruments to help it advance research applications for DESI.
Additional terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Waters noted that Prosolia will continue to supply the DESI technology for certain non-Waters mass spectrometer configurations until Sept. 30. It will also continue to honor warranty requirements made prior to its deal with Waters to customers with a DESI source unit on non-Waters mass spectrometers.
"The acquisition of DESI technology bolsters Waters' portfolio of mass spectrometry imaging innovations," Waters Chairman and CEO Chris O'Connell said in a statement. "DESI mass spectrometry imaging provides complementary and actionable data when compared to classical histopathology imaging technologies with major advantages in analyzing the molecular fingerprint within a sample."
In April, Waters reported a slowdown in the sale of its mass spec instruments, which O'Connell attributed to "an unusually sluggish start in biomedical research, particularly high-resolution mass spec in the omics area, combined with temporary disruption from territory realignment within our US mass spec sales team made as part of an ongoing growth initiative."