Nanion's SyncroPatch 96 Convinces Big Pharma Automated Patch Clamp Users

Nanion’s ion channel screening platform, the SyncroPatch 96, has been well received within the pharmaceutical industry during the past 12 months. Experienced automated patch clamp (APC) users continuously decide in favor of the SyncroPatch 96 because of its high throughput and cost efficiency in combination with reliable pharmacology for heterologous voltage- and ligand-gated ion channel targets.

The SyncroPatch 96 is Nanion’s high throughput screening platform, capable of generating 9000 data points per day. Since the launch earlier this year, the SyncroPatch 96 platform has been validated with a wide variety of ion channels and cell types, including challenging ligand gated channels, such as alpha-7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors.

“The flexibility of the SyncroPatch 96 to run ligand-gated assays without sacrificing throughput or fidelity relative to voltage-gated channels really sets it apart in the gigaseal auto-EP space,” said Dr. Adam Hendricson, Lead Evaluation, Bristol-Myers Squibb. “When considering different platforms, the SyncroPatch was the only system that met all our critical criteria: >50% giga-seal across multiple cell lines, minimal chip priming and cell-handling, rapid solution exchange for fast agonists, internal solution exchange, ability to multiplex cells in a run, compatibility with external robotic automation, and a highly competitive cost per data point. We run the SyncroPatch on a daily basis and are very happy with its performance and efficiency, and with the excellent, highly responsive applications support offered by Nanion.”

“We carefully researched the market before looking closer at selected APC platforms that may match our internal criteria,” added Dr. Henning Draheim, Boehringer-Ingelheim. “We were very impressed by the SyncroPatch 96 system’s flexibility and data quality when testing it on-site, finding that it really performs as advertised and definitely fits our needs. In addition, Nanion performed a blind study on the SyncroPatch, testing 22 of our compounds, using a protocol addressing the block of sodium channels in their inactivated state. The obtained compound pharmacology was compared to our manual patch clamp data and the match was fantastic. For me, it was then a straightforward decision for the SyncroPatch 96 and of course it is great when the data speaks for itself when one needs to convince the upper management to purchase state-of-art equipment.”

Nanion Technologies GmbH is a German Private Limited company and was founded in 2002 as a spin-off from the Center for Nanoscience (CeNS) of the University of Munich. Nanion’s team has developed and globally established two highly successful automated patch clamp instruments as enabling tools for sophisticated and high throughput applications for ion channel research and drug discovery. In 2009, Nanion lauched its high throughput, high-quality automated patch clamp system, the SyncroPatch 96. Nanion’s instruments use planar patch clamp chips, which replace the traditional glass pipette used in the technique of patch clamp electrophysiology.