Comment

Cloud robotics labs are accelerating drug discovery and development

Specialist robotics vendors such as Strateos, Automata Labs, and Insilico Medicine offer laboratory set-ups with cloud-connected robotic equipment. 

Credit: Shutterstock/ZinetroN

Drug discovery and development is an incredibly expensive and time-consuming process, taking between 12 and 18 years, and costing on average between $2bn and $3bn. Considering the low chances of success, with only 10% of drug candidates making it into clinical development, pharma companies must prevent the increased erosion of profit margins. 

Automating processes in the drug discovery and development pathway with robotics supports faster analysis and hit generation, in turn helping to reduce the time and cost of moving a drug from the lab to the clinic.

Robots can improve drug discovery and development

GlobalData’s Smart Pharma 2021 Survey found that 22% of industry professionals thought robotics would be one of the most disruptive technologies for optimising the drug discovery and development process. However, most respondents also indicated that their company was not currently investing in the technology, which suggests that the use of robotics has not yet reached its full potential in drug discovery and development.

Industrial co-bots in laboratory environments carry out repetitive and complex workflows, and if connected via the cloud, workers can also benefit from real-time results. Many pharma companies are already using robots for high-throughput screening in drug discovery, handling liquid compounds, and testing millions of samples for activity against a biological target. For example, AstraZeneca is automating the entire design-make-test-analyse cycle for drug discovery in its Swedish iLab.

Remote-controlled robotic labs

Specialist robotics vendors such as Strateos, Automata Labs, and Insilico Medicine offer laboratory set-ups with cloud-connected robotic equipment, including both caged industrial robots and industrial co-bots. These cloud robotic labs allow researchers to carry out drug discovery and development processes, including the design-make-test-analyse cycle remotely via a computer platform. 

The laboratory robots are connected to a cloud platform and the data collected by the robot can be passed on to every other robot on the same platform, allowing researchers to access the results in real time and analyse the results remotely. Lab-specific industrial co-bots can carry out both complex and repetitive tasks such as liquid handling. This helps to reduce human error and provide more reliable, replicable results and increase the speed of drug discovery and development processes.

Lab-specific industrial co-bots can carry out both complex and repetitive tasks such as liquid handling.

Eli Lilly is the first big pharma company to publicly invest in cloud robotics labs, having designed the Lilly Life Sciences Studio Lab with Strateos in the US. The closed-loop robotic lab consists of more than 100 instruments and provides storage for over five million compounds, accelerating the design-make-test-analyse cycle by automating design, synthesis, purification, analysis, sample management, and hypothesis testing.

Eli Lilly has already seen positive results, with the lab generating almost 20% of the company’s compounds that go on to biological screening. As the deployment of robotics in the pharma industry increases, cloud robotics labs will help companies to quickly produce novel therapeutics for emerging diseases.

GlobalData, the leading provider of industry intelligence, provided the underlying data, research, and analysis used to produce this article.

GlobalData’s Thematic Intelligence uses proprietary data, research, and analysis to provide a forward-looking perspective on the key themes that will shape the future of the world’s largest industries and the organisations within them.

Go to article: Home | CoverGo to article: Editor's letterGo to article: ContentsGo to article: Mimotopes Company InsightGo to article: MimotopesGo to article: ControlantGo to article: SyntegonGo to article: BriefingGo to article: News in NumbersGo to article: Latest NewsGo to article: Latest DealsGo to article: Project UpdatesGo to article: Datwyler Company InsightGo to article: DatwylerGo to article: CfPIEGo to article: In DepthGo to article: Dawn of a new indication: How to study drugs for aging Go to article: Cleanroom tech tackles environmental impact of consumables Go to article: Tapping into digital therapeutics to improve neurological outcomes Go to article: CMO Moves: Regulatory catalysts for drug manufacturing – March Go to article: Ethics of ultra-rare disease drug development and expanded accessGo to article: APAC early-stage innovators raise one-third less VC funds than US players Go to article: Zenatek Company InsightGo to article: BEA TechnologiesGo to article: Bio Image Systems Inc.Go to article: Thematic TakeGo to article: Thematic Take: contentsGo to article: Foreword: the transformative power of cloud Go to article: An introduction to cloud computingGo to article: A history of cloud computingGo to article: The impact of cloud computing on the pharmaceutical industry Go to article: Applications of cloud computing in the pharmaceutical industry Go to article: Latest news: cloud computing in pharma Go to article: Q&A with GlobalData thematic analystGo to article: Is RFID the future of smart labelling?Go to article: Cloud robotics labs are accelerating drug discovery and development Go to article: Leading pharma companies in the cloud computing theme Go to article: Deal activity related to cloud in the pharmaceutical industry since 2020 Go to article: Cloud hiring trends in the global pharmaceutical industry since 2020 Go to article: Cloud patent applications in the global pharmaceutical industry since 2020Go to article: Mentions of cloud in pharmaceutical industry company filings since 2020 Go to article: GlobalData Thematic IntelligenceGo to article: Pharma Sponsored SupplementsGo to article: HOF SonderanlagenbauGo to article: Thermo Fisher ScientificGo to article: ListingsGo to article: EventsGo to article: RankingsGo to article: Buyer's GuidesGo to article: Next issue