Nicoya^®, a pioneering life science instrument company specializing in innovative biosensor technologies, announces the launch of the Alto Automation Suite™ for its flagship Alto™ Digital SPR™ system. This makes Alto the world’s first SPR platform that is fully compatible with standard lab automation, enabling thousands of samples per week to be run without human intervention.

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A robotic arm retrieves the Alto Cartridge, filled with samples and reagents, from the Opentron Flex liquid handling platform and transfers it to the Nicoya Alto Digital SPR system. (Photo: Business Wire)

“With the rapid evolution of AI in protein design, it’s becoming increasingly important to streamline high-throughput biologics characterization by automating and integrating workflows via software and hardware,” said Ryan Denomme, CEO at Nicoya. “Incorporating SPR into these workflows has traditionally been a significant challenge. Conventional SPR systems are bulky, complex, and require constant manual intervention to keep buffers replenished and to change out sensor chips. With Alto’s compact, robot-compatible design, unique well-plate-based cartridges, and cloud-native software, we’ve eliminated these barriers, enabling 24/7 unattended SPR analysis.”

The Alto Automation Suite features an API to allow scientists to program tasks for the Alto and to facilitate its integration with existing automated workflows, LIMS systems, and data pipelines. Nicoya has also partnered with lab automation leader Opentrons to offer pre-configured labware definitions and workflows to streamline cartridge preparation on the Opentrons Flex^® liquid handling robot.

“As labs of all sizes continue to see the benefits of automation, we’re always looking for additional ways for these labs to further streamline and accelerate their workflows,” said James Atwood, General Manager of Robotics at Opentrons. “Nicoya is doing impressive work in SPR with similar goals in mind, and our collaboration will make automated SPR accessible to more labs doing high-throughput biologics discovery workflows.”

See the Alto automated workcell in action at Nicoya’s booth 3033 at SLAS2025 or visit nicoyalife.com/automation to learn more.

About Nicoya Lifesciences

Nicoya is a Canadian life sciences tools company specializing in innovative biosensor technology for the academic and biopharmaceutical sectors. In their mission to improve human life, Nicoya provides scientists with user-friendly and integrated solutions that accelerate label-free biomolecular analysis. Information about Nicoya can be found at nicoyalife.com.

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