Compound Confirmation using Acoustic Ejection-Open Port Interface Mass Spectrometry (AE-OPI-MS) Analysis in Support of High-Throughput Screening Activities

Compound Management (CMD) has the responsibility to oversee the Pfizer compound collection and ensure that the integrity of the collection is of high quality. The sample QC (sQC) process, within CMD, is the current benchmark for assessing compound quality as it employs UPLC-MS to assess the basic requirements of compound quality, purity and mass confirmation. The throughput of sQC is driven by two factors, the number of compounds in the queue and the instrumentation available. The current sQC operations were designed to support lead optimization activities, where the number of active compounds range in the hundreds. High-Throughput screening activities, however, can have compound queues in the thousands which can overburden the sQC process. Acoustic Ejection Open Port Interface Mass Spectrometry (AE-OPI-MS) employs acoustic dispensing technology to introduce samples to the mass spec alleviating the chromatography requirement while increasing the rate of analysis over 3fold. AE-OPI-MS methodology has been developed to complement the traditional sQC analysis and expand the analytical capabilities to support high throughput screening. Software improvements were also developed to enable the analysis to include purity assessment.