Xceleron, the cutting edge of science York University spin-out company, today announced that it has won a contract to help pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline set up the industry's first in-house Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) facility.

Professor Colin Garner, chief executive of Xceleron, pioneered the use of the AMS with a massive 20-ton instrument, which took two years and £2.75 million to build at the Government's Central Science Laboratory in Sand Hutton.

The nuclear physics-based machine has been used to revolutionise the way in which clinical trials of new drugs are carried out by pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.

Tiny doses of experimental drugs are given to volunteers whose blood is then analysed by the machine which, by generating millions of volts, can measure isotopes atom by atom.

The process speeds up by a year to 18 months the drug development process from idea to brand name, which otherwise can take between ten and 12 years.

Costs which can be as much as $800 million can be slashed by millions; and it reduces the use of animals in the testing process.

Xceleron, based at the Biocentre at York Science Park, already uses its AMS technology to provide analytical research services to GlaxoSmithKline, which was its first customer recognising the value of the technology as far back as 1977, when the organisation was first formed.

Today Xceleron provides bio-analytical services to 15 of the world's top 20 pharmaceutical companies

Now GlaxoSmithKline is buying two small AMS machines for about £1 million each from the National Electrostatics Corporation of Wisconsin, USA, to set up two facilities, one in the UK and one in the US; Xceleron is providing consultancy advice for the complicated setting up of the machines.

But the pharmaceutical giant has agreed to continue to be a research client of Xceleron.

Prof Garner said: "As our first client, GlaxoSmithKline was instrumental in the setting up of Xceleron, having the foresight to see the value of this unique, enabling technology.

"We are delighted to help them to the next stage by assisting in the commissioning of the first AMS machines to go directly into the pharmaceutical industry."

Jeremy Hague, European business development manager for Xceleron, said: "This wasn't a case of ruining our seedcorn.

"We want this technology to be used as widespread as possible to allow better drugs to be made faster and thereby to create even more demand for our services.

"So GlaxoSmithKline's determination to set up its own AMS technology represents a major endorsement of both the technology and our pioneering role."

Updated: 11:17 Wednesday, September 08, 2004