WOBURN, Mass., March 25, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Covaris Incorporated today announced the introduction of the Bench-top SF220 High Performance Formulation Processing System.

The SF220 system was designed to extend the company's ground-breaking Adaptive Focused Acoustics (AFA) technology to higher volume sample processing.  With the ability to process sample volumes from microliters through tens of liters, larger volume application areas such as Pre-clinical formulation, drug delivery systems, and biological processes (such as cell lysis, sonoporation, or transfection) can now "scale-up" the advantages of the proven AFA technology.

The Covaris SF220 system provides a solution for the problem of poorly soluble API's using the proprietary Covaris AFA Technology.  For example, adoption of the AFA-based SF220 system for preparation of DMPK formulations has been shown to improve quality of the studies by increasing the bioavailability, while reducing subjective content and improving operational efficiency.  Using AFA to accelerate dissolution can improve both the quality and efficiency of the drug development process, with unparalleled reproducibility, precision, and speed.  Demonstrated increases of solubility of over 90% have been achieved, while concurrently reducing the process time from over 2 days of stirring to under 3 minutes, and increasing the available API by over 2.5x due to a dramatic reduction in API degradation.   According to Jim Laugharn, Founder and CEO, "We at Covaris are very excited about the introduction of the new systems to meet the 'pent-up demand' our current customers have for processing larger sample volumes with AFA technology."  At present, Covaris has installed over 1,500 systems in over 30 countries worldwide.

AFA has also been demonstrated to formulate monodisperse, nano-emulsions with mean particle sizes of 20nm and an index below 0.100.  Liposomes can be produced using a simple lipid/water combination with the resulting single populations below 100nm.  The ability to reduce particle size of a crystalline API in water to below 15nm is possible.  All results were achieved using Adaptive Focused Acoustics TM (AFA) with very fast process times, non-contact, and isothermal operating conditions.

The Bench-top scale SF220 system is currently available from Covaris.  Pilot scale systems are currently in development.

About Covaris Inc.

Covaris, Inc. is a rapidly growing life science instrument company. Its proprietary instrument platform, based on patented Adaptive Focused Acoustic (AFA) technology brings unsurpassed speed and efficiency to biological and chemical sample preparation.  The AFA process, based on shock wave physics, delivers controlled, precise and accurate energy to biological and chemical samples. The process is non-contact, isothermal and rapid. Leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies worldwide are using Covaris instruments for DNA shearing, RNA extraction, Compound Dissolution and much more.

Information about Covaris is available at http://www.covarisinc.com

SOURCE Covaris Incorporated