Meeting the Needs of the World’s Leading Toxicologists

Testing for ‘designer drugs’, ‘legal highs’ and other novel materials is a continuing challenge for clinical, forensic, sports testing and toxicology laboratories. The recent meeting of the
International Association of Forensic Toxicologists (TIAFT) highlighted a number of materials required for use as reference compounds and internal standards in applications such as testing for evidence of exposure to alcohol and drugs in substrates including blood, urine and hair. LGC Standards is pleased to announce that many of these new materials have now been sourced and are included in our recently revised and relaunched catalogue ‘Reference Materials for Clinical, Forensic and Sports Drugs Applications’. A particular example of an area of increasing interest to analysts is plant-derived chemicals which have toxic or psychoactive effects, or which can be used as precursors for controlled drugs. Here too, LGC Standards has been able to source a range of reference materials, such as kava alkaloids and Salvinorin A (the active ingredient of Salvia divinorum), and these phytochemical reference materials have also been included as a new chapter of the catalogue. These and many other new reference standards, including deuterated materials, glucuronides and other metabolites, are now available to laboratories carrying out analysis for
drugs of abuse, therapeutic drugs and sports doping agents, from LGC Standards offices throughout Europe. LGC Standards simplifies the sourcing of reference standards and can deal with the complex issue of legal requirements in relation to international trade of controlled substances. In addition, expert advice and assistance is available to source of substances that are not currently included in the catalogue.