Pharmaceutical analysis robots

Laboratory automation in pharmaceutical analysis attained maturity since robots first appeared in pharmaceutical laboratories more than 20 years ago. While automation offers great promise for improving sample throughput and reducing sample backlog, its implementation has not been without problems. The industry cannot invest heavily in tools that produce little return on investment. Strategies in key aspects of automation such as planning, vendor selection, personnel, and efficient use of systems can determine the success or failure of an automation project. 

Today, a number of pharmaceutical companies dealing with HTS reach a turnover of more than 15 different assay systems a year, in which 300,000 samples or even more are tested. This confronts the scientist with more than 5,000,000 data points which point to the need for efficient automation at all stages of HTS, even in data collection, data quality control and analysis. Robots, especially large systems integrated with multiple peripheral devices, are prominent at present. 

Howard, B. Experiences and expectations for transferring automated pharmaceutical analysis methods in a global pharmaceutical company. In Proceedings of the 1999 International Symposium on Laboratory Automation and Robotics, CD-ROM version, ISLAR, Hopkinton, MA, 1999. 

The use of robotic systems is becoming increasingly common in pharmaceutical analysis. In fact, this Is one of the areas where robots are gradually replacing conventional techniques in control laboratories. 

Pharmaceutical analysis [18-20] has undoubtedly been the most receptive field to robotic applications, probably due to the suitability of robots for quality control operations. To a much lesser extent, robots have been used in environmental monitoring, in the treatment of biological samples (clinical chemistry) and in elemental organic and inorganic analyses. It is worth pointing out the small number of references available on the use of robotic stations for the analysis of foodstuffs or materials of industrial interest. 

The application of technology in laboratories via automation and robotics (flexible automation) minimizes the need for human intervention in analytical processes, increases productivity, improves data quality, reduces costs, and enables experimentation that otherwise would be impossible. Pharmaceutical companies continuously look for ways to reduce the time and effort required for testing. To meet the ever-increasing demands for efficiency while providing consistent quality of analysis, more pharmaceutical R D and QC laboratories have now automated their sampling, sample preparation, and analysis procedures. 

Robot-based automated devices have been designed to perform HPLC injections (esp. off-line injections) unattended by pharmaceutical researchers. Each step of an HPLC analysis can be automated either by the robotic arm itself or by the use of a dedicated automated peripheral... 

In this chapter we will discuss current approaches for analytical characterization of combinatorial libraries in a pharmaceutical industry environment. Recently, several analytical groups have presented very similar strategies for analysis of libraries [7-9]. As will be shown later, the key to successful analytical characterization of a combinatorial library is to perform analytical and chemical work in parallel with the library development. The accumulation of data and analytical experience during this process results in an assessment of library quality with a high level of confidence, even if as little as 5-10% of the library components are analyzed. Utilization of the strategy will be demonstrated using two examples analysis of a library synthesized on a robotic station in spatially addressed format and analysis of a library synthesized in accordance with split-and-mix technology. 

The DSC impurity analysis is described in USP. With modern equipment including robotic systems and data aquisition, the DSC purity analysis is a state-of-the-art technique for pharmaceutical development. 

K. D., Mandagere, A. and Poole, S.K. (2004) Automated robotic liquid handling/laser-based nephelometry system for high throughput measurement of kinetic aqueous solubility. Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis, 36, 447-456. 

Profile This privately held company was founded in 1993 to integrate advanced technologies in structure-based design, combinatorial chemistry, and chemi-informatics for the cost-effective discovery of orally active pharmaceuticals. The company has developed a system capable of generating new drugs through computer-controlled robotic synthesis and analysis of chemical libraries. Current drug discovery efforts are focused on cardiovascular disease and cancer. 

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