Agilent Launches Infinity III LC Series at HUPO, Bridging Fundamental Research and Therapeutic Developments

As a customer-focused company, one of the beautiful things that we do at Agilent when we launch a new product is that we talk at length to our customers – scientists in academia and in pharma – and we work to understand what their needs are and the key features going forward to advance their research.

We interviewed over 100 customers in several market segments and also got feedback from almost 1000 customers, to identify the needs of all customers – not just from Agilent customers - in digital surveys.

The feedback from almost all customers was that the performance of modern high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) instruments is sufficient. Of course, there are applications where more separation power or sensitivity is needed, and customers have already established methods for these cases, usually by combining LC and UHPLC with mass spectrometry (MS) detection. However, nearly all customers requested us to focus on ease of operation – especially for novice operators, error prevention, improved troubleshooting and easier maintenance to maximize the productive time for instruments and lab personnel.

One of the major conversations at HUPO 2024 is about taking fundamental proteomics research that helps us understand disease states and translate that knowledge into the clinical research space. In this area of proteomics research, scientists are using increasingly larger cohorts, which means their throughput and sample tracking requirements are much higher. This is where the Infinity III Series comes in.

We wanted to make an instrument that is easy to use and can tell the user directly about the state of its health – how much solvent it’s using, for example – and integrate this instrument intelligence alongside sample tracking. This combination works to facilitate those large cohort translational studies and accelerate academic research into the translational research space.

Key innovations of the Infinity III LC Series are the InfinityLab Assist Technology, the InfinityLab Level Sensing and the InfinityLab Sample ID Reader. Additionally, we have incorporated technology and features previously introduced in the 1290 Infinity UHPLC systems across all platforms. These innovations will help analysts in all market segments to automate repetitive tasks, prevent errors and increase confidence in results.

In the bio-analytical space, analysts can benefit from features such as automated start-up to prepare the system and equilibrate columns, smart purging to switch between mobile phase systems, improved gradient performance for the quaternary and flexible pumps, as well as solvent level sensing and prediction of solvent consumption.

We received feedback from customers who have already experienced the Infinity III systems. They expect time savings of up to 20% due to these features, which help them to become more productive and also more sustainable. 

In our interviews and surveys, we also learned that method compatibility is another key requirement for our customers, not only in the regulated pharma and bio-pharma QA/QC labs.

The seamless integration of new systems in the existing lab environment and software infrastructure, and the ability to continue using established analytical methods and procedures without interruption, was important to almost all interviewed customers. For us, it is very important that most of our customers can benefit from the new capabilities, which is why we introduced not just one new system, but transformed almost the whole 1260 and 1290 Infinity LC portfolio, including the Bio LC portfolio.

Moreover, we offer upgrade kits for all Infinity II users so that they can benefit from the new features. This enables customers to protect their investments by upgrading their existing equipment with new technology. It also allows them to establish a consistent user experience and to unlock efficiency gains for the whole lab or even across departments, which is especially valuable for innovative workflows, such as Advanced Sample Linking which offers QR code-based sample tracking, connecting laboratory information management systems, sample preparation, LC analysis and analytical data.

Agilent has been committed to and is renowned for its activities towards net zero carbon reduction and transparency towards this goal. With our background deeply rooted in the scientific community, we believe in traceability and numbers: this is why we have net term and net zero carbon reduction goals in place verified by the Science Based Targets Initiative. Further, we aim to provide transparency to the market by providing third-party assured eco-labels for a growing number of our products.

In 2023, over 40% of Agilent’s instrument revenues were generated by instrumentation with the My Green Lab accountability, consistency and transparency (ACT) Label. The label indicates the environmental footprint of our products, indicating the environmental footprint of our products across the life cycle. This information is becoming increasingly important for customers pursuing their own environmental goals.

With the launch of the Infinity III LC portfolio, we took our commitment even further. We became the first company in the world to achieve accreditation under the new ACT 2.0 label from My Green Lab. In addition, we have conducted a Product Carbon Footprint study in compliance with ISO 14044. Our intent here is to allow our customers to address their need for clear, third-party verified information about a laboratory product’s environmental impact from manufacturing, use, packaging and end-of-life. We also offer scientifically sound and third-party verified footprint data to funnel into their own Scope 3 calculations.

Certainly. We have talked about some of the challenges – translational research, for example, where sample load and automation become really important.

What’s ironic is that, as the demand for translational studies rises, there are fewer people to do those studies. This is creating an emerging capabilities gap in the workforce to handle these large studies. Agilent is committed to addressing that gap and making translational studies easier. We’re working on creating highly curated workflows for our users that make it easier and less intensive to run essential experiments using our advanced instrumentation, regardless of the staffing you have in the laboratory at any particular time.

At Agilent, not only do we have MS and proteomics applications, but we are passionate about developing novel insights for the wider life sciences community and proteomics is one piece of that wider perspective.

I’m really interested in looking at scenarios where we can start to embrace other tools, such as Seahorse™ technology, to understand the fundamentals of cellular metabolism and how these processes interact with the proteome and the genome in the context of a system.

I’m really proud to be part of Agilent because we’re a company that can offer the tools to integrate all of these data together to generate synergistic insights.

I think that a key focus for Agilent is the word synergy.

Life science research is not only about the proteome, but it’s also about all the other omics disciplines and thinking about how these insights can be integrated together.

We have started to build standardized processes that make it easier to conduct omics workflows together on the same system, as we’re really passionate about enabling our customers to generate a holistic understanding of how these systems work together.