Robot investment increasing in pharmaceutical industry
According to the analysis of Global Data data, the pharmaceutical industry has seen an increase in robot investment on several key indicators. This is mentioned more frequently in company reports in early 2021. Global Data's subject industry focus is to group key company information related to contracts, agreements, patents, etc. by subject to determine which industries are best suited to deal with impending disruptions. These topics (including robotics) are best viewed as "everything that keeps the CEO awake at night."
By focusing on them, you can determine which companies are leading on certain topics and which companies are postponing. Pharmaceutical companies' investment in robotics has decreased, and the number of transactions has also decreased. Global Data data shows that the pharmaceutical industry reached seven robot transactions in the second quarter of 2019; there were two in the second quarter of 2021; robot investment is increasingly driving innovation in the pharmaceutical industry. In the second quarter of 2019 and the last quarter of 2020, this number was reduced to four patents. A recent study by the Packaging and Processing Technology Association (PMMI) found that in 2018, robots will be responsible for 34% of primary pharmaceutical packaging in North America. Assembly and maintenance of light vehicles. Benefits include faster speed and accuracy, greater flexibility and higher reliability. With the rapid increase in the use of robotics in the pharmaceutical industry, it is important to consider the benefits of the latest technology to manufacturers, researchers, and scientists.
A robot is an automated system that includes sensors, intelligent decision-making algorithms, and actuators. Various types of robots have emerged, including compatible selective assembly. (SCARA) Robotic arms, articulated robots and delta robots, which can be used for gripping and placing applications. Martin Van Trieste, vice president of quality at Amgen in Thousand Oaks, California, said that although many companies have successfully installed robots in pharmaceutical and packaging laboratories, they have been slow to use robots for production purposes. Since this is a repetitive activity that requires a high degree of repeatability to produce high-quality products, the aseptic filling will particularly benefit from robotic automation. "Successful aseptic filling requires impeccable discipline in order to consistently produce aseptic products. The body is the source of contamination in the pharmaceutical cleanroom.
"Logically, any technology that can take the operator out of the clean room can produce Sterile products," Van Trieste said.
In addition, the robot can improve quality assurance and quality control, and achieve 100% inspection that is difficult for humans. The robot system consists of multiple cameras and a conveyor belt, "can shoot any tablet in the blink of an eye You can check the weight, color or barcode-he added. Robots are not suitable for all pharmaceutical processes, and manufacturers must consider certain criteria when deciding to adopt this form of automation. In general, a very repetitive and very precise process is a good candidate for robotics. Many robots work at high speeds and are suitable for mass processing. In addition, the robot can execute small transactions that take up all of the employee's time.
Before starting robot investment systems, companies must consider the economic impact. As with other mature technologies, the cost of robots has been steadily declining: slower or more traditional equipment with the flexibility and robustness of robot automation makes economic sense," Langos said. Barrett said. The flexibility of robots makes this Possibly.
The company can do this with small batches of drugs and quickly switch to another product without incurring automation and fixed-price capital costs.” This makes it very practical, especially for genome-specific drugs and benefits. Suppliers in the base market," Barrett said. On the other hand, domestic robots are likely to be much more expensive than installing production lines. "If it costs US$2 billion to build an aspirin factory, then the cost of an aspirin is very low." Barrett said," Barrett said. Sometimes robots can only be used to save costs. However, pharmaceutical companies may offer robots Find more options to improve product quality and employee safety," Barrett said. Trieste added. Others believe that adding robots to the pharmaceutical process is fundamentally economically feasible, and automated robots are usually justified," Langos said.
Global Data data shows that there were 7 robot transactions in the pharmaceutical industry in the second quarter of 2019. The recruitment structure of the entire pharmaceutical industry shows that people are paying more and more attention to the role of robots. Robotics are increasingly detrimental to innovation in the pharmaceutical industry. Various types of robots have emerged, including selective assembly robots, articulated robots, and triangular robots for picking and placing. Parallel robots are platforms mounted on "legs". These systems provide higher accuracy than robot manipulators (for example, when inserting). Carlisle said that the emergence of vendors such as Varian and SciGene has enabled the pharmaceutical industry to increasingly use robots. Robots are not suitable for all pharmaceutical processes, and manufacturers must consider certain criteria when choosing this form of automation. Today, robots are made of materials that are resistant to cleaning agents used on pharmaceutical laboratory instruments. Generally speaking, pharmaceutical companies can easily find robots that are clean enough to work in clean rooms. Small contract packers use robots as much as large pharmaceutical companies because robots do the same. Langos said this is good for both types of companies.
The pharmaceutical industry is increasingly going into robot investment to automate specific drug development processes, including drug detection, counterfeit protection, and manufacturing tasks. In addition, structural protein analysis can be performed automatically using a combination of X-ray crystallography and NMR. Investigation of specific interactions between a particular drug and its target protein at the atomic level. This process often requires hundreds to thousands of experiments to produce a protein crystal suitable for X-ray crystallography. An automated micropipette machine can produce nearly a million different crystals. All at once and tested with X-ray crystallography.
Despite these advantages, many pharmaceutical manufacturers are still skeptical of robotics, considering it a new technology that is too complex to implement and adopt the technology, especially SMEs. who believe that only the big manufacturers can afford it.
