Waters Corporation has acquired Rapid Evaporative Ionization Mass Spectrometry (REIMS) technology from MediMass Ltd. The REIMS technology represents substantially all of the assets of MediMass and includes patent applications, software, databases and REIMS expertise.

​REIMS is the enabling technology for the “Intelligent Knife” or “iKnife,” a device in the conceptual stages of development that could potentially be used for real-time diagnostics in surgery. Waters is committed to exploring the viability of this application in accordance with all applicable regulatory requirements. To date, no regulatory approvals have been sought for this device.

Waters’ experience with REIMS technology stems from a three-year collaboration among Waters, MediMass, and Imperial College London focused on advancing REIMS. The goal of this relationship has been and continues to be advancing REIMS technology capabilities for health-science applications.

REIMS is an ionization technique that can be used as a source for direct analysis of samples by mass spectrometry. To date, REIMS technology has shown the ability to bring ambient ionization sampling into real world applications such as food safety, microbiology and clinical diagnostic applications. The transient nature of the REIMS signals is  suited for Waters’ time-of-flight mass spectrometers. A REIMS ion source will be made commercially available to complement the current range of ionization sources on Waters Universal Ion Source platforms.

Source: Waters Corporation