CyTOF 2, CyTOF-2-to-Helios and AS-5 End of Serviceable Life

[anitamkant]

Dear Valued Customer,
At Standard BioTools™, we continually review our ability to provide the high-quality service and support for our install base of instruments that our customers have come to expect.

CyTOF® 2 was last in production in 2015. After eight-plus years of reliable operation and full-service support, we have determined that CyTOF 2 and the CyTOF 2-to-Helios™ upgraded instrument and the supporting AS-5 Autosampler have reached their end of serviceable life (EOSL), as it no longer possible to acquire several of the components required for the continued support of these instruments.

Consequently, as of February 1, 2025, Standard BioTools will no longer be able to offer full-service support for the CyTOF 2, CyTOF 2-to-Helios and AS-5 instruments. If you have an active service account, we will continue to service your instrument for the remaining duration of your contract. Beyond that point, any further service will only be available on the best-effort time and materials basis up until February 1, 2026. However, it should be noted that it may be increasingly difficult to acquire parts as the year continues.

We value your business. To mitigate any impact on your productivity, we want to ensure that you have the latest technology in your laboratory combined with premier support. CyTOF XT™ offers all the functionality that you have come to rely on and is the most accurate and comprehensive functional immunoprofiling solution on the market. CyTOF XT has the following improvements over its predecessors:

•Automated sampling with online QC bead additions and integrated cooling
•Fully automated pellet resuspension and agitation
•The ability to run suspension and pelleted samples
•Automated clog sensing and resolution
•≥25% argon gas savings
•Reduced footprint and noise via an integrated cooling system
•An improved detector lifetime
•An RFG plasma load coil, which is guaranteed for the life of the instrument
•Lower electrical usage
•Simpler maintenance
•Improved ease of operation, which supports workforce upskilling
•Outstanding, comprehensive service support

For more information, please feel free to contact your local commercial team.

Sincerely,
Eve Kroukamp PhD, C.Chem (ACPO)
Global Product Line Manager
Eve.Kroukamp@StandardBio.com

Kevin Yaremchuk
Vice President – Global Sales Operations & Service Delivery
kevin.yaremchuk@standardbio.com

[mleipold]

Hi all,

This is a fairly big deal: I know there are a lot of CyTOF2 out there, and also a LOT of CyTOF2-to-Helios upgrades that are affected by this. For example, at least 4 instruments at Stanford are affected by this.

In the interest of the user/customer base being able to better understand the scale (and what others are planning in terms of replacement vs not-replacing), I have created a Google Forms survey on this topic: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIp ... g/viewform

It starts today (Feb 14) and will run through Feb 29. I'll release the Google Sheet output results the first week of March.


Mike

[MCOlivier]

Hi all,

Dear Mike,

Thank you deeply for this initiative.
I just started a census of the instruments concerned in France.

I'll come to this topic with the results.

May I share here a personal point of view, that is : stopping an instrument which was launched less than 10 years ago is not very politically correct, forcing centers and labs to get to the last version, surely better, but let's say everything but cheap. They do not even talk about substancial discounts for XT acquisition for centers concerned...

Fairly a big deal ? Yes !

Best regards,
Olivier

[CRStevens]

Hi Mike,

We also will be impacted by this. It is disappointing to say the least. We are uncertain on what to do next, but are scrambling to find options. I've tried to hoard as many glassware/cones, ect as I could to prolong this process, but most will not be able to do this.

I can't update the form as Pfizer doesn't like us using anything to do with google, so unfortunately can't fill out your form, but am also interested in hearing others thoughts on this. In my personal opinion my CyTOF2 with the helios upgrade is a beast and churns through samples and still gives me very consistent signals, so don't want to get rid of it.

-Chad

[mleipold]

HI Chad,

Thanks for the feedback.

I don't think there's a way to create a survey for more than one question on Cytoforum itself.

I'm not sure that SurveyMonkey is much better than Google Forms, but I just created a version at this link for people who are blocked from Forms: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/N7ZZGJX


Mike

[mleipold]

Hi all,

I have closed the Google Forms and Surveymonkey surveys about the CyTOF2/CyTOF2-to-Helios upgrade EOL announcement.

I have attached an Excel of the combined 21 responses. Note: the Surveymonkey survey didn't have the open-answer final question about additional feedback (that was a paid-feature). Otherwise the questions were the same.

Hopefully the userbase will find the results useful.


Mike