Pipetting Solutions Streamline Drug Discovery for Inflammatory Diseases

Integra Biosciences’ electronic pipetting solutions are helping to improve the efficiency and accuracy of drug discovery at Pharmaxis Ltd. The Australian pharmaceutical company has been using Integra’s ASSIST PLUS pipetting robot, as well as the company’s VIAFLO 96 and VIAFLO 384 electronic handheld pipettes to streamline its development and evaluation of novel drug candidates for the treatment of inflammatory and fibrotic diseases.

Pharmaxis operates a highly productive drug discovery engine, starting from the synthesis and screening of potential targets right through to Phase II clinical trials, so it is important that its labs are equipped with flexible instruments for each stage of the workflow. Ross Hamilton, Research Scientist at Pharmaxis, explained: “We were looking for an all-round liquid handling solution when we came across the ASSIST PLUS pipetting robot from Integra. In combination with 12 channel VIAFLO electronic pipettes, this system has been incredibly useful for all of our pipetting tasks, from compound dilution to preparing microplate reader assays. We use this set-up across almost every stage of the workflow, along with the company’s VIAFLO 96 and VIAFLO 384 handheld electronic pipettes - which we have with various pipetting heads ranging in volume sizes of 50 to 1250 µl - for whole plate filling and transfers.”

“The accuracy of these instruments is really good, and pipetting multiple channels in parallel helps to eliminate the risk of human error. We also like the company’s GRIPTIP pipette tips, as we never have to worry about them leaking or falling off, which could potentially disrupt our concentration and hinder accuracy. We’ve been using all three instruments for over two years now, and we operate them every single day - they’ve become the dependable workhorses of the lab,” Ross concluded.