The automation revolution upstream of the life sciences

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.