Growing Use of Robots in Labs

The lack of highly skilled labor that has been a major issue for medical device manufacturers and clinical and pharmaceutical research laboratories has been solved by having robots substitute for human labor in these applications, according to a new analysis by Frost & Sullivan (Palo Alto, CA, USA), a global growth consulting company.

Robotic systems are increasingly being adopted in order to improve productivity and efficiency as the demand for more sophisticated medical devices and newer drugs continues to grow. The new analysis revealed that the total market in North America for industrial robots for medical and pharmaceutical applications in 2004 was U.S.$384 million and is expected to reach $668 million by 2011.

Robots have great potential to enhance efficiency and throughput in clinical laboratories, where samples need to be delivered from patients' bedsides to the test equipment and then to the analyzers on a daily basis. This is due to the distinct advantage they have over human-based delivery methods in terms of quicker transportation and a much greater handling capacity.

"As technology improves, more features are likely to be added to robotics systems, not only for delivery but also for testing and analyzing the samples,” noted Kishan Bhat, a research analyst with Frost & Sullivan. "This will enhance the efficiency of the robots, and in turn, boost the throughput of the laboratories.”

However, industrial robotics manufacturers face several challenges in their efforts to establish themselves in medical and pharmaceutical applications. Key among these is the incompatibility of their controller software with existing installed equipment. In most cases, this proprietary software is not upgraded frequently to meet the changing application requirements. The introduction of open architecture controllers is expected to reduce this challenge, however.

The emergence of stand-alone workstations in pharmaceutical labs is another strong challenge. While these can handle liquids for microplates within a limited capacity, they do not need manual intervention during the process, are less expensive, and occupy less space than total automated robotics systems. Because of these advantages, many pharmaceutical labs are opting for partial automation of their facilities even though fully automated robotics systems are more flexible and accurate. An increasing number of labs are considering microfluidics as an effective way of reducing costs, because of their ability to miniaturize chemical assays and thereby increase portability.