Biotage® Extrahera™ and the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics

The only equine drug testing laboratory in Japan, the Laboratory of Racing Chemistry (LRC) established in 1965 is an internationally accredited horse racing doping control laboratory primarily to provide analytical testing services for the analysis of equine biological samples including urine, blood and hair. LRC also provides the parentage verification test to certify the pedigrees of the Japanese horses to protect the breeding industry and racing creditably in Japan. 

In February 2021, LRC was approved by the Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI) as one of the five FEI approved laboratories in the world for testing the equestrian samples from the FEI-regulated events and was subsequently designated by the FEI as the sole laboratory for testing the pre-arrival testing samples and the equine anti-doping and controlled medication samples for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Equestrian games in the summer of 2021.
To handle a wide variety of tests, the Drug Analysis Department utilizes Biotage®  Extrahera™ Classic and Biotage® Extrahera™ HV-5000 automated sample preparation workstations that can rapidly and automatically handle sample processing. In this customer case, we interviewed both Dr. Misato Kodaira and Dr. Yoshibumi Shimizu, Chemists in the Drug Analysis Department, about the background and the key points that led to their decision to introduce our systems into their laboratory.