Company Profile

CAMAG has started to launch its fully automated next generation HPTLC instruments in September 2019 under the name of CAMAG® HPTLC PRO SYSTEM. Module APPLICATION, Module DEVELOPMENT, Module DERIVATIZATION and Module PLATE STORAGE have been launched. The remaining two Modules will be launched in 2025. Then, the first fully automated sample analysis and evaluation system for routine quality control in HPTLC analysis will exist. New patents speak for the value of this innovation, leaving customers with even improved cost efficiency.

The decade of CAMAG®’s HPTLC Software visionCATS. The first version was launched in 2012. This software established HPTLC over TLC. It stands for ease of use and intuitive simplicity. The software organizes the workflow of HPTLC and controls all involved CAMAG® instruments. The easy-to-navigate user interface guides effectively through the chromatographic process – from analysis definition to analysis reporting. As state-of-the-art software, visionCATS is based on a client-server system offering enormous flexibility to the number of instruments and users that are working together, and enabling access to the same data for all members of a work group. The sample-oriented approach allowed for creating virtual plates with tracks originating from different plates, for example, batch-to-batch comparison or long-term stability testing. Further new functionality was added with visionCATS: a powerful search tool and a file explorer, which includes extended preview functionalities, enable highly comfortable searches for samples, methods, and analysis files.

The next level of the software was released in 2000 with a new concept: winCATS Planar Chromatography Manager, whose development was already started in the mid-1990s. As the name says, all main CAMAG devices were controlled with this software and all data and results were saved according to cGMP. winCATS offered the option for 21 CFR Part 11 compliance and was worldwide unique in terms of concept, scope and quality in our analytical field. The customer could define the extent of documentation. For all individual devices, SOPs (Standard Operation Procedures) were developed and specially trained CAMAG specialists could now carry out IQ/OQ (Installation Qualification/Operation Qualification) certifications on customer’s request.

At the same time, CAMAG launched the CAMAG® Automatic TLC Sampler 4 (ATS 4), which is still state-of-the-art today. Precision and robustness of the sample application in the nL and μL range were further increased. In addition to spot and band application, the possibility of application of matrix and water-containing samples in the form of a rectangle was added.

In 2001, the Linomat family was advanced with the CAMAG® Linomat 5 (still state-of-the-art), which is operated with our software.

From 2005 on, industrial digital cameras revolutionized CAMAG´s documentation system. Initially, DigiStore 2 combined the Reprostar 3 lighting unit with a high-resolution, high-linear 12-bit CCD camera and data transfer via FireWire. The system combined functions for exposure optimization and background correction with excellent color fidelity.

In 2002, the bioluminescence detection for activity and toxicity screening – initially based on a test developed by Bayer using the marine bacteria Vibrio fischeri (reclassified later to Allivibrio fischeri) – was added to the product range, and was optimized in 2006 with the release of the CAMAG BioLuminizer®. A cooled 16-bit CCD camera with high resolution and quantum efficiency still allows the inexpensive and fast detection of sample components with biological activity.

Since 2005, the CAMAG® ADC 2 offers automated development of HPTLC plates (20 x 10 cm). The automated process ensures the preconditioning and activity setting of the layer, the monitoring of the development process by means of a CCD sensor, and the control of the drying conditions. With this in Planar Chromatography a previously unattained consistency of the R_F values – within a plate and from plate to plate – is achieved. The ADC 2 was initially operated via winCATS, now with visionCATS or stand-alone.

With the use of high-quality industrial digital cameras for documentation and image-based evaluation, the demands on the illumination unit increased. CAMAG® TLC Visualizer is since 2008 the corresponding improved solution.

Our CATS software was enhanced with a considerable number of user-friendly features and options, including various calibration functions, path optimization, background subtraction, spectrum acquisition, spectrum library, to name but a few. CATS also supported the calculation of results in mg/tablet, Content Uniformity Test (CUT), and the correlation calculation of the corresponding spectra for identity and purity tests, which is important for many pharmaceutical customers.

CAMAG took into account the requirements of cGMP (current Good Manufacturing Practice) with its equipment and software development.

Starting in 1991, CAMAG established a quality assurance system, on the basis of which the company achieved ISO 9001 certification at its first attempt in 1995 and has since regularly regained it.

With the CAMAG® Automatic Sample Applicator III (ATS III), a software-controlled device was introduced to the market in 1990 that enabled spot and band-shaped application in the nL and μL range. Initially, it was operated stand-alone. Later, the ATS 3 software was integrated into CATS so that the corresponding parameters did not have to be entered again for the Scanner. The ATS III helped many customers worldwide to use TLC and HPTLC for quantitation. The device remained in the CAMAG product range for 10 years until it was replaced by the ATS 4 in 2000.

The slightly less demanding sample applicator, CAMAG® Linomat IV, was introduced at the beginning of this decade and remained in the program until 2001. The device was microprocessor controlled, the application parameters were entered via a keyboard.

In 1992, with the CAMAG® Automatic Developing Chamber (ADC), the development step was automated and thus made convenient for the user.

In 1994 we launched the CAMAG® TLC Scanner 3. The device features a spectral range from 190 to 800 nm, a measuring speed of up to 100 mm/s, step resolution selectable between 25 and 200 μm, and fast spectra acquisition of up to 100 nm/s at an oversampling rate of 40/nm.

Despite all the advances in classical densitometry and the advantages of spectral resolution, it became apparent that many users of Planar Chromatography wanted to use electronic image acquisition either alternatively or complementarily. Therefore CAMAG extended its documentation system with Video-Store for documentation, archiving and with VideoScan for quantitation.

We should also mention CAMAG® AMD 2, which we released in 1997. With this system, the development paths are no longer controlled by time increments, but, as with the ADC, directly by a CCD sensor. AMD is still the only way for many users to separate matrix-loaded multicomponent mixtures with high resolution using HPTLC.

When we moved into our new building in the Sonnenmattstrasse in Muttenz in 1980, the CAMAG® TLC Scanner (I) had become our most successful device in the product range. We had initially built a series of 10 and planned to produce a few more small series before it would be replaced by a successor model. In fact, we sold more than 500 units before we released our CAMAG® TLC-Scanner II in 1983.

The Scanner was mainly operated in connection with an integrator, partly only with an analog recorder. As early as 1976, Siegfried Ebel and his group in Marburg, later Würzburg, equipped the Zeiss KM3 Scanner with a computer for operation. As soon as the CAMAG Scanner was on the market, Ebel developed a computer control system for it as well. From 1980 CAMAG sold Ebel’s software, later we developed our own.

Sample application was now the step that had to be automated. European competitors in the TLC market had various solutions for this. All of them were based on the fact that parallel dosing devices applied several samples simultaneously. Desaga used a peristaltic pump, Shandon and CAMAG syringes operated in parallel. The CAMAG device had the special feature that the expansion of the application zone was controllable.

This period includes the systematic instrumentation of all TLC steps. This became inevitable when Merck launched the HPTLC plates in 1975. CAMAG became a pioneer in instrument development and subsequently the recognized market leader in Thin-Layer Chromatography.

At the beginning of this decade, experts did not yet agree whether quantification by direct photometric evaluation or by elution of the separated zones with subsequent photometry in solution leads to more precise results. CAMAG® Eluchrome allowed for the elution of six substance zones with 1.5 mL solvent in parallel without scraping the layer off the plate.

The original purpose of the company was the production of Aluminium Oxide for chromatography. It was offered with different pH values (basic, neutral, acidic), and mainly sold at the highest activity levels according to Brockmann, i.e. Brockmann activity I. Applications ranged from Preparative Column Chromatography on a laboratory scale to the industrial use, mainly for the removal of by-products from the compound of interest. Today, CAMAG is still a reliable producer of Aluminium Oxide and has a REACH accreditation for Europe.

The foundation of CAMAG coincided with the rapid spread of the analytical technique Thin-Layer Chromatography (TLC). Egon Stahl made TLC known in Europe and standardized it. CAMAG took up the new method and offered as early as 1962 an extensive range of products for the TLC steps used at that time: plate coating, sample application, chromatogram development, reagent transfer for derivatization by spraying and UV inspection.