ARRAYJET has won a $600,000 (£400,000) contract to supply its specialist printing technology to an American protein specialist.

Edinburgh-based Arrayjet will supply equipment that CDI Laboratories will use to analyse thousands of protein samples quickly.

CDI Laboratories analyses proteins for academics and pharmaceutical firms working in areas such as cancer research and vaccine production.

The company, which is based in Maryland and Puerto Rico, said the speed and versatility of Arrayjet’s printer technology will significantly improve its manufacturing capabilities.

Scott D. Paschke, vice president of CDI Laboratories, said: “Arrayjet’s printing technology is certainly cutting edge and we expect it to significantly improve our capacity and quality.”

Backed by the Archangels investment syndicate, Arrayjet said the contract was a significant award which strengthened the company’s position in the specialist international market it operates in.

Mike Rutterford, who founded Archangels with Barry Sealey, said: “This contract with CDI Laboratories underlines that, with a growing international capability, particularly in North America, Arrayjet is destined to be the partner of choice for so many pharma labs and biomedical technology specialists.”

Led by chief executive Iain McWilliam, Arrayjet recently supplied technology for use in the analysis of bio molecules at the Free University of Brussels and in the development of pre-natal tests in Australia.

Arrayjet was founded in 2000 by Howard Manning, a physicist from Cambridge University, and Peter Ghazal and Douglas Roy, molecular biologists from the University of Edinburgh.

Mr Manning discovered a method of using ink-jet printers to create biological microarrays. These are large slides used to test huge numbers of fluid samples at once.