Our research scientists care about the impact of the work done with our products, and we are committed to providing high-purity reference standards. We are passionate about helping our customers receive the best tools available to provide accurate, reproducible results, for a reasonable price, every time.

Our Credentials

Our DEA-licensed production site in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, holds both ISO/IEC 17025 and ISO 17034 accreditations, recognizing our commitment to maintaining the highest level of quality established by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

Our Products

Cayman supplies reference standards for a wide range of testing and research applications, including forensic science, clinical analysis, toxicology, pharmacology, and natural product testing. We offer our products as analytical standards, reference materials (RMs), and certified reference materials (CRMs) to cover individual analytical testing needs and laboratory requirements.

What We Offer

We are renowned for our industry-leading collection of forensic and toxicology reference standards for drug and metabolite testing, including synthetic cannabinoids, phytocannabinoids, opioids, benzodiazepines, stimulants, and hallucinogens.

We offer reference standards for:

• Traditional & emerging drugs of abuse
• Metabolites, impurities, additives, and precursors
• Pharmaceuticals
• Environmental contaminants
• Natural products

Who We Serve

• Private & government labs
• Academic research institutions
• Biotechnology & pharmaceutical companies
• Environmental testing labs
• Cannabis testing labs
• Clinical labs
• Medical examiner offices & police crime laboratories
• Law enforcement agencies

Areas We Support

• Forensic analysis
• Clinical & toxicological testing
• Pharmaceutical research
• Drug testing & monitoring
• Phytocannabinoid profiling & potency testing
• Natural product quality testing

Analysts and researchers can be assured that when they purchase Cayman standards, they can expect the highest degree of certainty with regard to the identity and purity of our products. We subject all of our products to a wide variety of analytical techniques during and after submission to our Quality Control team to verify product identification, purity, and fit-for-purpose quality. Extensive quality control ensures that every batch of a specific product meets our high standards.

What Sets Us Apart

We are renowned for our industry-leading collection of reference standards for novel psychoactive substances (NPS) and our expertise, which we openly share with expert technical support and collaboration. We have multiple intel gathering mechanisms that ensure we are responsive to emerging designer drug standard needs.

Our understanding of the challenges faced by forensic laboratories drives us to be knowledgeable of current NPS trends and provide high-quality, accurate reference standards in a timely manner.

Extensive Availability

We have experienced scientists that serve as our internal subject matter experts. Our depth of knowledge on multiple drug classes enables us to solve even the most complex challenges.

We offer a wide selection of high-purity reference standards for traditional drugs of abuse and NPS, including:

• Parent drugs
• Metabolites
• Precursors
  
• Degradants
• Impurities/contaminants
• Isotopically labeled compounds
• Custom organic synthesis

These items are available in multiple formats to meet a variety of analytical testing needs.

• Neat analytes
• Single-component solutions
• Multi-component mixtures
• Analytical standards panels
• DEA-exempt solutions
• Alternate batch standards
• Custom mixtures

Our team is built of dedicated subject matter experts that oversee the development of our standards from start to finish. Our experts ensure the quality of raw starting materials, design and carry out the synthesis of a reference standard, interpret analytical data at every step along the synthetic path, and ensure accuracy prior to QC submission as well as post-production. Throughout all production steps, we ensure compliance with quality standards and regulations.

Rapid Access

The NPS landscape changes alarmingly fast, and our rapid response is essential to mitigating the harm caused by these compounds. We take a proactive approach to anticipate needs for new reference standards. We monitor the ever-changing designer drug scene, giving us early knowledge of an NPS. This allows us to promptly synthesize a reference standard, expediting its availability to the forensic community.

At Cayman, we value collaboration with community stakeholders in the field to guide product development. We regularly attend conferences to connect with scientists worldwide and are attentive to their needs.

There are often challenges associated with communicating the identity of an NPS because these novel scaffolds do not have a universally accepted nomenclature outside of IUPAC. We are often the first to synthesize standards of emerging NPS, making us uniquely poised to help establish standardized naming conventions utilized by the forensic community. Cayman collaborates closely with the NPS Discovery program at the Center for Forensic Science Research & Education (CFSRE) to help develop systematic naming for newly emerging NPS.

Due to the ever-expanding nature of the NPS market, we must make difficult decisions on what standards to prioritize for synthesis. Can't find a standard? Please reach out and let us know.

Collaborative Spirit

No single organization can quell the NPS crisis. The ongoing epidemic demands clearer communication in the field, requiring all parties involved to be both more innovative and collaborative.

Cayman is an important ally in the NPS crisis. When an NPS is introduced into the market, the unknown structure is typically first noticed in biological or seized drug samples. We can help determine the likely structure of the unknown and synthesize an authentic reference standard to confirm the new NPS.

We offer our assistance in the identification of unknown substances without charge. With over 3,800 products, our team is well-versed in the interpretation of complex MS fragmentation patterns to shed light on the structure identification of unknown substances.

Need help identifying your unknown? Send your data to techserv@caymanchem.com.

Our collaborative spirit has helped address some of the most pressing issues posed by NPS. Recently, we helped the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation identify a novel synthetic opioid, ethylene etonitazene. Our assistance in the putative identification of this unknown, followed by an expedited availability of a reference standard helped confirm the identity of the unknown substance.

At the height of the fentanyl analog proliferation, testing laboratories struggled to keep pace with the number of fentanyl analogs that were continuously introduced to illicit markets. To support laboratory detection of these emerging opioids as well as common co-drugs found in fentanyl-containing samples, we partnered with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to manufacture and distribute the Fentanyl Analog Screening (FAS) Kit, FAS Kit V1-V4, and Emergent Drug Panel (EDP), EDP-V1, and EDP-Internal Standard Kits free-of-charge to qualified laboratories. We continue to support rapid detection through these and other kits offered in our catalog.

At our core, we are scientists supporting science, and we partner with academia to study the potential effects of NPS. By connecting our reference standards to leading academic scientists, our collaborations have resulted in scientific papers on emerging NPS, providing essential information detailing the potential harm posed by these new compounds.

Many of our scientists deliver conference presentations as invited speakers and participate in workshops and training sessions throughout the year to share our insights and help shape the direction of the field.

If you are interested in having one of our scientists speak at your event, please email Donna Iula, Ph.D., VP of Forensic Chemistry, or connect with Donna on LinkedIn.

Literature & Media

Our scientists seek to contribute to the forensic community in many ways. We make various resources available to our customers to assist them in the identification of unknowns in their samples. These resources are available on our Literature page.

Here, customers can find:

• Articles: well-researched and informative overviews on pressing issues facing forensic and Cannabis testing laboratories

• Guides: knowledge resources to navigate complex subjects, including standardized NPS naming conventions

• Application Notes: in-depth methodologies for NPS that are challenging to identify and differentiate

• Brochures: product selections tailored for specific research interests

• Lab Wall Posters: guides for NPS identification and naming and visualizations of biological and metabolic pathways

• Scientific Posters: research findings made by Cayman scientists with our products  

• Monographs: drug monographs we've partnered with the CFSRE to publish

• Press Releases: the latest cutting-edge tools and announcements from Cayman

• Webinars: listen as we discuss a variety of topics relevant to forensic and research professionals

Our Tools

We value providing access to broader resources to help meet the needs of our colleagues around the world.

• Cayman Spectral Library: a free-of-charge, searchable GC-MS spectral database containing 70EV EI MS data of hundreds of Cayman's emerging forensic drug standards

• GC-MS Drug Identification Tool: search unknowns by formula weight, base peak, or 2^nd base peak ion

• Synthetic Cannabinoid Flipbook: identify drugs of abuse that share common head, core, and tail pharmacophores with known synthetic cannabinoids

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