Laboratory Automation
It's surprising how much pharmaceutical research to date has been more art than science. Computing power is still a long way off predicting the properties of proteins and cells from their DNA, so until then the more research that can be accelerated by automation (e.g. lab robots, lab-on-chip) the better.
And this is being driven by the big pharma companies who can't afford the failure rate at late stage drug development, or worse after release which can result in multi-billion law suits. I attended an excellenty talk by the chief scientific office for GE Healthcare recently and they are mass producing stem cell lines, and the machinery to test them, so that drugs can be tested for cardio-toxicity much earlier on in the development process.
Resources
Locus Biosciences
- Biotechnology company developing CRISPR-engineered precision antibacterial products.
Samsara Therapeutics
- Company developing therapeutics for life extension.
resTORbio
- Biopharmaceutical company developing therapeutics for aging-related diseases.
Eisai
- Pharmaceutical company focusing to cancer and neurology drugs.
Janssen Pharmaceutical
- Pharmaceutical company which is part of Johnson & Johnson company.
Novartis
- Global medicines company for developing and producing drugs.
Pfizer
- Company developing, producing and marketing affordable, high quality generic drugs and specialty pharmaceuticals.
Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd.
- Company developing, producing and marketing affordable, high quality generic drugs and specialty pharmaceuticals.
Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG)
- German agency responsible for assessing the quality and efficiency of medical treatments.
Cortexyme
- Company developing new therapies for neurodegenerative diseases.
Laboratory Automation Blog Posts
Laboratory Automation - only the white coats remain
24-Apr-2015
Recent News
Importance of AI in drug discovery
Select Science - 01-Oct-2019
Automation eliminates manual operation and leaves no room for errors
Read more...Robot revolutionises study of new molecules
Independent - 18-Jul-2018
This software test many chemical reactions simultaneously and may lead to faster drug discovery
Read more...Robots grow mini-organs from human stem cells
ScienceDaily - 17-May-2018
An automated system was developed to keep track of the growing of mini-organs from human stem cells
Read more...
