From the assembly line to the black light lab, the automation revolution upstream of the life sciences

In China, the degree of automation in most laboratories is still mainly in the form of single modules; Only some laboratories in the field of workstation form, the degree of integration is limited, the price in the domestic market is mostly at the level of millions of yuan, customers include pharmaceutical companies, CDC, third-party testing centers, etc., representative companies are Thermo Field, Beckman, Agilent, Deken, Hamilton, etc.

In addition, there are parts of the pipeline form automation (Total laboratory automation, referred to as TLA), which through the guide rail series adjacent functional areas, to achieve unified quality control of the whole system, can effectively reduce the human error and biological contamination rate in the experimental process, common in the laboratory - mainly biochemical immunity, The representative enterprises are Beckman, Roche, Siemens, etc., and the local manufacturers Antu biological and the above companies are fighting seriously.

Robot form intelligence is still in the early stage of development in China, has not formed large-scale application, and there is not much gap at home and abroad.

Eventually, everyone's vision points to an unattended "black light lab," in which researchers use the platform to program their ideas, and the system can be efficiently completed. However, this often needs to meet the following requirements: the introduction of advanced technologies such as manipulators, machine vision, and AI decision models; Minimal transformation of laboratory and key inspection equipment to achieve system cascade and closed-loop opening; Instead of manual completion of repetitive work or human can not reach, process result reading and judgment, automatic trial and error and final result screening output.

At present, Eli Lilly Pharmaceutical, InSI intelligence are trying in this regard. It is reported that Lilly has invested more than $300 million in the use of robotic cloud platforms to improve biological capabilities and automate chemical synthesis cycles; Insili is spending tens of millions of dollars to apply its proven AI platform to robotic lab scenarios, further enhancing its ability to automate drug discovery through a combination of "brain (AI)" + "hand (robot)."

Magnesium laboratory automation system

At this stage, most startups are making efforts in the direction of intelligent robot form, typical such as magnesium technology, Huixiang technology, etc. Most players in the industry have not generally reached the stage of large-scale mass production; Another category is the development of automated applications in certain niche scenarios, such as BDA Intelligent manufacturing (molecular diagnostics), BDA Biological (biological cryopreservation), Innoville (cell culture), and Chengyuan Technology (synthetic biology); Some of them are TLA's domestic alternative or fully open TLA systems, such as Antu Bio, Mindray Medical, Mike Bio, or Sanomide, Ritech and so on; There is also a class of automation software applications, such as Bright Wisdom, Zebrafish, which mainly addresses the need for paperless laboratory scenarios, and ultimately to ensure compliance and data security.

Among them, the first category carries the expectation of unmanned intelligent laboratories - most of which are still in the early stages of exploration. As mentioned above, the demand has reached an unprecedented stage, coupled with the extensive exploration of the third generation automation technology based on "AI+ robot", combined with equipment, LAS and LIS/LIMS, life science laboratory automation has become another arena for everyone to fight technology, fight scenarios, and finally scale.

The second type of development is mainly based on the rapid development of downstream industries. Take molecular diagnostics as an example, it is currently the most technically demanding, fastest growing and most challenging branch in the field of in vitro diagnostics, but because of the advantages of high throughput, high sensitivity and relatively low unit cost, with the development of PCR, NGS and other technologies, its application range has been rapidly expanded, putting higher requirements on upstream services.

The third category takes advantage of the development of the county medical market and the normalization of nucleic acid testing. The outbreak and continuation of the novel coronavirus epidemic, heavy testing work and time-consuming testing time, the presence of false Yang (Yin) and possible infectivity in the laboratory, make the automation of testing laboratories gradually become the industry's buzzword; In addition, the contradiction between the growth of the primary medical inspection market and the mismatch of manpower supply brought about by the centralization of county medical care has further promoted the development of the industry.

According to the director of a regional laboratory of Golden Field Medical Inspection Group, there are currently 1,500 medical inspection laboratory automation lines in the country, the overall market capacity of about 7,000, and now the annual growth rate of more than 300 installed machines, coupled with the general price sensitivity of grassroots service providers, which gives local manufacturers greater opportunities. However, this market is very competitive, with predictable ceilings, and is not widely concerned by the capital market, so this article will not discuss it.