Nicoya Lifesciences Announces Launch of FastHDX™, a Millisecond HDX-MS Platform Aimed to Open New Therapeutic Opportunities

• FastHDX unlocks millisecond HDX-MS, delivering a 4-5 order-of-magnitude leap in labeling resolution and revealing fast, transient protein dynamics that conventional structural biology methods miss.
• Early adopter results from top pharmaceutical and academic institutions validate FastHDX for probing transient allosteric states in disease-relevant systems including diabetes, cancer, and Parkinson's disease.
• Seamless integration with standard LC-MS workflows, providing complete protein dynamics without requiring specialized infrastructure.

KITCHENER, ON, March 5, 2026 /PRNewswire/ - Nicoya Lifesciences, Inc., a leading provider of advanced biophysical characterization tools for biologics discovery and development, today announced the launch of FastHDX, a new hydrogen-deuterium exchange mass spectrometry (HDX-MS) platform. FastHDX is the first platform engineered to measure protein structural dynamics and conformational changes at millisecond resolution, enabling direct interrogation of transient states that are inaccessible with conventional techniques.

While many structural biology approaches focus on stable, folded proteins, a growing number of disease-relevant targets are often found through intrinsic disorder, weak interactions, and dynamic allosteric coupling rather than fixed structures. These proteins and regions populate transient conformational states that mediate low-affinity fragment binding and early regulatory events, yet remain difficult to interrogate with conventional techniques. Intrinsically disordered proteins and regions (IDPs and IDRs), defined as segments longer than 30 residues lacking stable structure, account for one-third of all eukaryotic proteins and play critical roles in diseases such as cancer and neurological disorders. Their highly dynamic nature has limited insight into the transient conformations that govern function and druggability. By enabling millisecond-resolved HDX-MS, FastHDX provides a direct experimental window into these short-lived states, allowing researchers to probe the dynamic mechanisms underlying intrinsically disordered biology and its therapeutic potential.

Key benefits of the platform include:

• Broad labeling time range (50 ms to 24+ hours) enables the capture of fast, transient conformational dynamics and long-timescale structural changes within a single platform, enabling comprehensive profiling.
• Millisecond labeling resolution (1 ms) enables researchers to resolve rapid protein motions and short-lived states that are invisible to conventional seconds-scale HDX-MS tools and techniques.
• Low sample consumption (8 µL total) enables millisecond HDX studies with limited or high-value samples, including peptides and early discovery targets.
• Automated analysis of up to 6 samples in triplicate with multiple time courses, with robotic expansion enabling up to 192 samples unattended.
• Seamless integration with commonly used LC-MS systems and analysis platforms for HDX-MS enables the adoption of FastHDX without disrupting existing mass spectrometry infrastructure or retraining teams on entirely new workflows.

"FastHDX enabled us to capture millisecond-resolved exchange behaviour and quantify low-stability structural dynamics that are inaccessible with established HDX-MS approaches," said Jonathan J. Phillips, University of Exeter. "By resolving these fast processes, we can begin to connect protein dynamics with functional outcomes in ways that were not previously possible. As millisecond HDX-MS becomes more widely adopted, it will significantly expand how we study protein motion, disorder, and mechanism – ultimately unlocking our understanding of complex disease, biotechnology and medicines."

"FastHDX is the culmination of nearly a decade of development by the Applied Photophysics team, shaped by deep external expertise and years of iteration with early alpha users," said Ryan Denomme, CEO of Nicoya Lifesciences, who acquired Applied Photophysics in June 2025. "While millisecond HDX-MS has existed in specialized academic settings, FastHDX is the first commercially available platform built to be robust, automated, and ready for real-world discovery workflows. That maturity is reflected in its adoption and evaluation by leading academic and pharmaceutical organizations, where the technology is being used to support advanced therapeutic development efforts."

Nicoya Lifesciences continues to demonstrate strong momentum in biophysical characterization with the launch of FastHDX, following the introduction of Revo just two months earlier. As a market leader, Nicoya Lifesciences delivers differentiated platforms that pair high-quality data with broad accessibility.

Nicoya Lifesciences will unveil FastHDX for the first time at the upcoming HDX-MS conference in Strasbourg, France, on March 9-13, 2026. Learn more here.

About Nicoya Lifesciences, Inc. 

Nicoya Lifesciences is advancing biopharmaceutical discovery by making high-quality biophysical data more accessible, actionable, and impactful for researchers worldwide. The company empowers scientists with integrated, intuitive analytical solutions that reveal how complex biologics function, behave, and remain stable – insights critical to confident decision-making across discovery and development.

Serving academic, biotech, and pharmaceutical teams, Nicoya Lifesciences helps de-risk research, accelerate development timelines, and unlock deeper biological understanding. By combining scientific rigor with usability and expert partnership, Nicoya Lifesciences enables its customers to move faster, ask better questions, and translate data into meaningful progress for human health. Learn more at www.nicoyalife.com, or follow us on LinkedIn.

SOURCE Nicoya Lifesciences Inc.