Robotics in the Pharmaceutical Industry: Changes to Expect

When someone mentions robots, it’s easy to imagine them in the manufacturing facilities of automobiles, metals, semiconductors, and electronics. It’s a bit more challenging to imagine robots in pharmaceutical manufacturing plants. Nevertheless, robots are being integrated into operations at pharma manufacturing plants at a breakneck pace. According to a Grand View Research report, the global pharmaceutical robots market size is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 8.8% between 2023 and 2030.

This growth is understandable, as the integration of robots offers exceptional benefits. They can streamline and automate various tasks, increasing efficiency and reducing downtime. Robotic systems can also minimize human error and contamination risks, improving product quality and regulatory compliance. Additionally, they’re also customizable and flexible, allowing manufacturers to adapt the systems to their actual requirements. These benefits have already been realized in various current applications!

Current Applications of Robotics in Pharma

You may not believe it, but robots have already been implemented in various pharma manufacturing facilities to automate simple tasks. Some such tasks include:

• Pick-and-place: Robots are used for picking items off a conveyor belt and placing them in a working area. These robots are also used for rudimentary sorting—imagine robots picking out medicine bottles of different sizes and placing them in different working areas or conveyor belts.
• Closing bottles: Robots are also used for closing medicine bottles and sealing them. For a person, this task is boring. Instead, a robot can easily do the task as it does not have any complicated steps, which will save time.
• Dosing: In most manufacturing facilities, dosing has been automated. A dispensing machine attached to a robot is used for quickly filling medicine bottles or syringes. Because the task is repetitive and requires high accuracy, using robots instead of people is more beneficial.
• Quality control: Robots are used for visual inspection of the packaged product. For example, robots identify incompletely filled packages or physical damage on the product, which can then be easily discarded.
• Packaging and labeling: Final product packaging can be done by robots, which can sort, fill, and seal boxes, pouches, and pallets with the required products. Robots can also label the packaging with the appropriate labels.

These are some of the most basic ways in which robotics and automation can be integrated into the pharmaceutical industry, and these robots are used in practice. However, many more potential use cases have yet to be realized.

Potential New Use Cases of Robotics in Pharma

Here are some other ways in which robots can be used in the pharma industry:

Drug manufacturing

• Formulation: Robots can be used for precisely mixing compounds to prepare formulations. In such applications, robots can guarantee higher accuracy.
• Tablet filling and pressing: Robotic systems can fill capsules at high speeds using automatic dispensing systems. They can also press tablets into correct sizes and doses with high accuracy.
• Material preparation: For processes that cannot be automated, robots can simply perform secondary tasks like moving raw materials to the production area and accurately weighing raw materials.

Quality control

• Visual inspection: Robots equipped with high-resolution cameras and AI can inspect capsules, tablets, vials, etc., to identify foreign particles, bubbles, cracks, and discoloration.
• Sampling: Robots can sample the formulation at various stages for quality control; this will prevent the introduction of contamination due to manual testing.
• Product handling: Robots can remove defective products from the assembly line for manual inspection. They can also transfer samples between instruments, reducing manual labor.

Warehousing and logistics

• Automated storage and retrieval systems: Robots can automate inventory management in warehouses, which will improve product tracking and space utilization.
• Order packing: Robots can also pack medicines according to the shipping requirements, reducing manual labor.
• Cold chain logistics: Robots can manage the storage and transfer of environment-sensitive pharma products such as vaccines and biologics, which will ensure consistent cold chain documentation.
• Order sorting: Robots can sort through packages based on urgency, destination, delivery routes, product types, etc., and transfer them to appropriate pathways.
• Autonomous vehicles: Mobile robots can transfer pallets between nearby warehouse zones. They should be integrated with cameras and GPS systems for accurate guidance.

Clinical trials

• Drug compounding: Robots can prepare individualized doses for clinical trial participants, especially for participants in double-blind trials.
• Data entry: Robotic systems can assist in real-time data entry during clinical trials. They can also automate data management and analytics.
• Sample handling: Robots can collect, label, and store biological samples, reducing sample mix-ups and contamination risks.

Aseptic manufacturing

• Cleanrooms: Robots can be used for aseptic manufacturing processes. As humans are the largest sources of contamination, robot usage will significantly improve the product quality.
• Product filling: Robots can fill products that require strict aseptic filling, such as injectables. This minimizes human contact and the subsequent contamination.

Among industry experts, these applications are well-known, but they’ve still not been implemented.

Problems Limiting Robotics Use

Here are some of the challenges limiting the use of robots in the pharmaceutical industry:

High initial costs

Robotic integration involves substantial investment on a company’s part, which may not be possible for many small and medium-sized pharmaceutical companies. The integration doesn’t only involve purchasing robots; it also involves purchasing software or other technologies that need to be integrated in existing systems to ensure seamless operations.

Personnel investment

Like any other technology, employees need to be trained to work with robots. Specialized knowledge is necessary to operate and maintain robotic systems, which may not be present in existing personnel. Therefore, companies have to invest in training workers or hire experts who can complete such requirements.

Facility redesign

Integrating robotic systems requires facility redesign. While robots make efficient use of space, their full advantage can only be realized when they’re appropriately integrated. For example, pick-and-transfer robots need dedicated obstacle-free pathways to operate. This redesign is expensive. Furthermore, the facility needs to be shut down for a certain period to make changes, and the downtime may not be beneficial.

Specialized designs

While robots can reduce contamination risk, they need to be specifically designed. For example, robots that need to be used in cleanroom facilities should have easy-to-clean surfaces and should be made of non-cracking and non-flaking materials. Finding robots that meet these rigorous requirements and are also affordable is difficult.

Poor flexibility

Robots are inflexible because they cannot easily be transferred from one operation to another. Retrofitting old robots for new applications is difficult. Furthermore, it may create contamination concerns, which cannot easily be identified.

What’s the Future Like?

For decades, we’ve heard the same thing: Robots are the future! And, yes, they may be. Robotic integration in pharma has several advantages. They can reduce manual labor, improve quality, eliminate human errors, increase efficiency, etc. However, this implementation is still limited. Even large-sized pharma companies have yet to adopt robots on a large scale because it’s expensive and challenging. The various use cases described here explain how robots can add real value to pharma operations, and we believe that many of these use cases will be realized: slowly, but eventually.

FAQs

• Do robots need to comply with regulatory guidelines?

Yes, robots must be fully validated and should operate within the frameworks of all applicable regulatory guidelines and good manufacturing practices.

• Will robots replace humans in pharma?

No, robots can be used to automate repetitive tasks like capping bottles. However, human workers will still be required for supervision, process optimization, and troubleshooting.

• Can robots handle hazardous materials?

Yes, robots are ideal for handling hazardous materials because they minimize human exposure and ensure safety.