MOBILION SYSTEMS
Advancing Biotherapeutics with High Resolution, Reproducibility, and Speed

With the shift from blockbuster drugs to personalized medicines, it has become essential to correctly detect and measure the molecules in complex biological samples. However, pharmaceutical and clinical researchers often struggle to detect clinically significant molecules with existing separations technologies due to the lack of specificity and throughput for their mass spectrometry (MS) workflows. This limits researchers’ ability to characterize biologic therapeutics and quickly discover crucial biomarkers.

This is where MOBILion Systems steps in. The company’s structures for lossless ion manipulation (SLIM) technology provides unprecedented capability to separate clinically relevant molecules for MS analysis. It helps researchers drastically improve metabolic disease, drug, and biomarker discovery, paving the way for earlier disease detection, more accurate diagnostics, and reduced healthcare costs. “SLIM delivers critical quality attributes through high resolution, reproducibility, and speed to advance biotherapeutics,” says Julie Sperry, SVP Biopharma Business at MOBILion Systems.

SLIM leverages the principles of ion mobility separations that enable rapid characterization of biotherapeutics and identification of biomarkers, reducing researcher’s dependency on Liquid Chromatography (LC) in traditional LC-MS workflows. The SLIM technology is installed between the LC and MS instruments post-ionization to provide an additional dimension of gas-phase separation. The system applies electric fields to electrodes on conventional parallel printed circuit board surfaces, creating ion conduits to separate and move ions around corners without losing sensitivity. This feat is achieved within a small footprint (24 inches wide and 22 inches high). More importantly, SLIM provides a very long, 13 meter path length to allow for maximum ion separation.

As a result, researchers can use the arrival time as a fourth dimension of separation to accurately resolve isomers.

While other ion mobility solutions force researchers to compromise on either mass range, resolution, or speed, MOBILion Systems’ technology enables them to analyze a wide mass range with higher resolution and speed—without making any trade-offs. SLIM also provides a throughput of minutes (instead of hours), which plays a vital role in quickly enabling population scale studies. “Our technology accelerates the drug development process by enhancing the sensitivity, throughput, and resolution of samples for rapid detection of clinically relevant molecules,” says Julie.

Researchers can use SLIM for rapid detection of various clinically relevant molecules, including proteins, peptides, glycans, and metabolites, among others. As SLIM separations are based on size and shape, they can separate analytes like isomers and isobars that were previously indistinguishable and also provides structural information about the function of the analyte being interrogated. Likewise, using gas-phase kinetics, SLIM delivers higher reproducibility of results, rendering more confidence to the researchers about the clinical analysis.

Leveraging its patented technology, MOBILion Systems has launched its first High-Resolution Ion Mobility Mass Spectrometry (HRIM-MS) instrument—MOBIE—which is focused on the biopharma discovery and development markets. The product enables pharmaceutical and academic researchers to characterize protein-based biological therapeutics faster with enhanced specificity. Additionally, MOBIE workflows are compatible with Protein Metrics Incorporated (PMI) software that simplifies 4D data analysis and provides reporting options, enabling rapid analysis and visualization of data.

Going forward, MOBILion’s primary objective is to expand the usage of the SLIM technology into other applications to help researchers better identify traditionally indistinguishable molecules. In essence, the technology is slated to be a stepping stone in early disease detection and biotherapeutic development.