As the first company to offer 2.7 µm superficially porous particle columns for HPLC, Advanced Materials Technology (AMT) has quickly grown. Founded as a two-person operation in Delaware in 2005, today, the company employs more than 20 people, including eight scientists in analytical chemistry, chemical engineering and biochemistry.

The company exclusively manufactures HPLC columns utilizing HALO Fused-Core technology, which was first introduced in 2005. Since longer travel distances can lead to coeluting, a shortened path can allow for UHPLC-like separations without the higher back pressures required of sub–2 µm columns (see IBO 10/31/10). HALO particles are the result of fusing a porous silica shell onto a solid silica particle. Compared with a 3 µm totally porous particle, which travels on a 1.5 µm diffusion path, the HALO particle’s diffusion path is 0.5 µm. AMT manufactures 11 different columns, designed for multiple phases such as bonded, silica stationary, phenyl-hexyl modification and hydrophilic interaction LC.

As other firms began introducing their own superficially porous particle technology, AMT took steps to expand its offerings. “Other companies have done a good job replicating our technology, so the differences are not ones of performance, but rather are seen as availability of a wide variety of bonded phase chemistries, level of technical support and continued development of new and useful products,” said Vice President of Operations Tim Langlois. The firm’s initial particle pore size of 90 Å was aimed at large drug firms and contract labs, according to President Joe DeStefano, PhD. For larger molecules, such as peptides and proteins, AMT introduced a HALO particle with 160 Å pores in 2010. In 2012, it launched a 5 µm HALO product line for quality control in pharmaceutical, biotechnology and general chemical labs. The company sells its products exclusively through distributors. “We fancy ourselves as a manufacturing and R&D organization and concentrate on those business functions,” said Mr. Langlois.

AMT has had its share of challenges. The company was involved in a legal dispute with Agilent starting in January 2008 (see IBO 1/31/08) related to the development of the HALO columns, which and was resolved in February 2010 (see IBO 3/15/10). “As a small business whose primary goal is to create cutting edge technology within our industry, we are always concerned about the difficult interplay between advancing the technology, while recognizing the laws designed to protect the results of innovators,” explained Dr. DeStefano. However, he believes the incident strengthened the company. “We have faced and ultimately overcome legal challenges in our past, and as a result, we know firsthand the risks associated with placing an issue before a legal system that is simply not equipped to understand the science implicated by our industry.”

AMT plans to continue to expand its product lines for HPLC analysis. Although the firm prefers to develop its own technology, in 2008 it licensed a particle coating technology from Germany’s Max Planck Institute. AMT plans to use the technology to develop a HALO product line with 400 Å pores for use with large molecules, such as proteins or DNA fragments, with molecular weights of up to 200,000 Da.