Acquisition of REIMS Technology Strengthens Health Science Initiative

Waters Corporation have announced the acquisition of Rapid Evaporative Ionization Mass Spectrometry (REIMS) technology from MediMass Ltd. The REIMS technology represents substantially all of the assets of MediMass and includes patent applications, software, databases and REIMS expertise.

“While showing promise across many applications, REIMS technology significantly strengthens Waters’ technology position within Health Sciences,” said Rohit Khanna, Vice-President, Worldwide Marketing and Informatics, Waters Division. “This technology acquisition along with our recent agreement with Prosolia, Inc for the exclusive rights to Desorption Electrospray Ionization (DESI) technology in clinical applications are key components in our burgeoning Heath Sciences initiative.  Both direct-from-sample ion source technologies are strategic discriminators as we look to grow the impact of mass spectrometry throughout the Health Sciences Continuum."

REIMS is the enabling technology for the ‘Intelligent Knife’ or ‘iKnife’, a device in the conceptual stages of development that could potentially be used for real-time diagnostics in surgery. Waters is committed to exploring the viability of this application in accordance with all applicable regulatory requirements. To date, no regulatory approvals have been sought for this device.

Waters' experience with REIMS technology stems from a three-year collaboration among Waters, MediMass and Imperial College London focused on advancing REIMS. The goal of this relationship has been and continues to be advancing REIMS technology capabilities for health science applications.

REIMS is an ionisation technique that can be used as a source for direct analysis of samples by mass spectrometry. To date, REIMS technology has shown the ability to bring ambient ionisation sampling into real world applications such as food safety, microbiology and clinical diagnostic applications.  

The transient nature of the REIMS signals is ideally suited for Waters' time-of-flight mass spectrometers. A REIMS ion source will be made commercially available to complement the current range of ionisation sources on Waters Universal Ion Source platforms.