Axon workstation wins R&D award

ASX-listed Axon Instruments has picked up an R&D 100 award for its OpusExpress 6000A electrophysiology workstation.

The awards, which recognise the 100 most innovative new technologies of the previous 12 months, is made by the editors of R&D Magazine and a panel of independent judges.

Axon's OpusExpress system is described by the company as the first commercially available multi-channel, automated oocyte voltage-clamp recording system, which makes possible high-throughput electrophysiology and improves the efficiency of the drug discovery process.

In a statement, Axon CEO Alan Finkel said high-throughput electrophysiology was the wave of the future.

"It is changing the way that pharmaceutical companies search for ion-channel drugs," Finkel said.

Ion channels have been implicated in a number of diseases, including cystic fybrosis, epilepsy, muscular dystrophy, migraine and cancer. The Human Genome project identified between 300 and 400 ion-channel genes in humans.