To date, all the company's products have been designed to serve at the laboratory-scale, where a team of chemists will have access to the microwave synthesis system. With the new product - called the Initiator - companies interested in using microwave synthesis in their drug development labs can get access to the technology at a lower price.
The Initiator is being debuted this week at the Analytica conference in Munich, Germany, which ends 14 May, and sales will start thereafter.
The product has a 45 per cent smaller footprint and 30 per cent lower price than its predecessors, the Emrys Creator and Emrys Optimizer sold under Biotage's Personal Chemistry banner.
Microwaves accelerate reactions without breaking down or affecting the substrate activity. This limits chance of unwanted by-reactions taking place, and reduces the amount of substrate that escapes reaction. The technology is being developed for use in a broad range of drug discovery and development applications, including proteomics.
The company said that the Initiator is important for Biotage's sales development as it opens up a new market segment "and will hence contribute positively to the result in the second half of 2004.
Biotage was acquired by Sweden's Pyrosequencing, itself recently wed to Personal Chemistry, last year.