SOTAX Group announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Waters Corporation. Under the terms of the agreement, Waters will make available to SOTAX its ACQUITY UPLC® H-Class System for sale to drug manufacturers performing small-molecule, solid-dosage analysis in Quality Control and Analytical R&D.

The Waters systems will be offered in both stand-alone configurations and directly connected to SOTAX dissolution and automated sample preparation instruments for on-line analysis.

"Working closely with Waters will allow us to generate significant value for our mutual customers in the current, data integrity driven environment. We are excited to have been selected by Waters to collaborate in the dissolution testing and sample preparation space", said Patrick Ballmer, Vice President at SOTAX Group.

Under the terms of the agreement, Waters licenses SOTAX as an independent distributor for the Waters ACQUITY UPLC H-Class System. SOTAX will market, sell and distribute the ACQUITY UPLC H-Class System through its own direct sales force to pharmaceutical laboratories in the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the Czech Republic.

"Improved sample preparation to keep pace with the speed of our ACQUITY UPLC instrumentation platform has often been requested by our customers," said Mike Harrington, Ph.D., Senior Vice President – Global Markets. "This exciting new collaboration links Waters and SOTAX technologies enabling our mutual customers to streamline their analysis, characterization and preparation of pharmaceutical samples, and improve their productivity and profitability."