LCT Premier XE Mass Spectrometer Sets Industry Standard in LC-Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry

Orlando, Florida, March 13, 2006

Waters Corporation (NYSE: WAT) introduced a new version of its LCT Premier^TM orthogonal time-of-flight mass spectrometer at the 57th Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy, March 12 - 17, in Orlando, FL. The LCT Premier XE is a compact, bench-top instrument configured for atmospheric pressure ionization (API) liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry and is optimized for use with Waters® ACQUITY UPLC^TM technology best known for its resolution, sensitivity and speed.

The newest version of Waters high-end LCT Premier XE mass spectrometer includes Waters patented LockSpray^TM technology for exact mass measurement, a new wizard-driven instrument setup protocol and the i-FIT^TM algorithm for isotope interpretation. Now standard features of the instrument, these technologies simplify the process of obtaining exact mass measurements and interpreting results. They enable the researcher to identify and characterize complex molecules or screen large compound libraries, particularly for Open Access environments. In this environment scientists, who once had to hand off their samples to experts to run, instead prepare and analyze their own samples on special-purpose, automated instrumentation which emails them a report of the results.

For many of today's most challenging applications, such as metabonomics or metabolite identification, sensitivity and resolution are key concerns. A scientist may be trying to identify hundreds of compounds some of which have very similar masses. The LCT Premier XE is designed for fast data acquisition to take full advantage of the high speed sensitivity and resolution of the ACQUITY Ultra Performance LC^TM System. LockSpray technology can also be equipped with numerous ionization modes - electrospray, dual ESI/APcI and dedicated APcI - for more comprehensive analysis of polar and non-polar compounds. By integrating UPLC together with the four-order-of-magnitude dynamic range of the LCT Premier XE, it is now possible to detect more compounds of interest more quickly.

Time of flight (TOF) mass spectrometry is used for a wide range of applications from characterizing complex mixtures to determining the exact mass and elemental composition of components. Primary applications for the LCT Premier XE include screening of compound libraries, protein identification and characterization, biomarker analysis, peptide analysis, pesticide residue screening, forensics, and the analysis of beverages, inks and dyes.

Features of the LCT Premier XE Include:

• Increased resolution up to 15,000 FWHM across the entire mass range of 30,000 m/z, providing increased selectivity and specificity.
• Exact mass measurements with sub-3 part-per-million accuracy. This level of accuracy helps scientists mine their data more accurately by performing accurate database searching and enabling workflows and data interpretation to be a lot easier.
• High sensitivity 'full spectrum' TOF analyzer providing low femtomole/picogram detection of multiple components in a single analysis. This allows scientists to 'see' all of their masses across the mass spectrum of interest down to the picogram level without having to perform additional experiments to acquire the same amount of information. This makes the LCT Premier XE ideal for screening large numbers of compounds such as pesticides in water.
• Up to four orders of dynamic range for exact mass and quantification of low-to-high concentrations of compounds in the same sample: the widest dynamic range for any oa-TOF mass spectrometer.
• Fast acquisition of up to 20 spectra/second for efficient peak detection and compatibility with UPLC separations.
• Polarity switching allows greater compound ionization coverage for both basic and acidic compound analysis during a single LC/MS experiment.
• Dual APPI and APcI ion source option.

The LCT Premier XE comes with MassLynx^TM 4.1 Software and new wizard-driven software technology for one-step setup and operation. There is now no need for time-consuming tuning of the instrument and scientists can have it up and running within minutes.

Waters plans to ship the LCT Premier XE within 60 days of launch and will begin accepting orders March 20.

About Waters Corporation

Waters Corporation holds worldwide leading positions in three complementary analytical technologies: liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry, and thermal analysis. These market segments account for $4.5 - $5.0 billion of the overall $20+ billion analytical instrumentation market.

• www.waters.com