SciYbotic Labs accelerates pharma market entry

Optimal Industrial Automation and Optimal Industrial Technologies have jointly developed SciYbotic Labs, a new suite of laboratory automation solutions. These solutions are tailored to boost profitability in pharmaceutical R&D and analytical quality testing. By enhancing efficiency, standardisation, and accuracy in laboratory analysis, SciYbotic Labs enables customers to expedite their market entry.

The SciYbotic Labs solution is part of the SciY product platform, a vendor-agnostic software brand committed to developing advanced scientific software and automation technologies. SciYbotic Labs enables pharmaceutical companies to set up fully automated, regulatory compliant, off-line laboratory testing systems for their products.

These systems can be deployed for both R&D and quality control purposes. They are fully customizable, allowing the analytical requirements of individual facilities and applications to be addressed, boosting accuracy, testing repeatability, precision and traceability.

Moreover, SciYbotic Labs liberates scientists from routine, repetitive manual procedures, offering uninterrupted operations, increasing throughput, and reducing errors and costs associated with quality control activities.

Featuring autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), multi-axis robots and the synTQ PAT (Process Analytical Technology) knowledge management software by SciY, SciYbotic Labs can perform every analytical stage for solid and wet chemical testing. This includes sample transportation, preparation, positioning within analytical instruments and onto trays, data storage, interpretation and visualization.

As an example, individual samples can be picked by a six-axis robotic arm on top of an AMR and transferred from manufacturing lines or any other area to the Smart Laboratory. There, the laboratory robots conduct any sample preparation following the analytical workflow and can then load and unload the necessary analytical instruments. Once these actions are complete and all tests have been performed, the robot can transfer the samples to trays that are uniquely marked for easy traceability, which the AMR can then transport wherever they are needed. This example is just one of a virtually unlimited number of potential workflows.

The synTQ platform hosts chemometric and other predictive models while offering intuitive dashboards to help subject matter experts gain insights on the results obtained. In addition, the software defines the characteristics of each sample and coordinates all testing and robotic activities.

Finally, synTQ stores all validated analytical methods and workflows in a GMP-compliant way. This has two key features. Firstly, workflows can be configured and approved for use by authorized personnel without the need to call in an engineering team. Secondly, the validated analytical methods/workflows can be transferred in a GMP-compliant, traceable way to any other laboratory in your organisation.

While changes would be required to the robot movements as a workflow is transferred between sites, to reflect the different configurations and equipment of the other labs, the configuration and validation of these movements is a straightforward engineering task compared to revalidating the analytical methods.

SciYbotic Labs is therefore fully customizable to address the specific needs of each individual pharmaceutical application and can also help drive inter-facility collaboration and standardization. As a result, the same GMP-compliant process can be adopted by different facilities across the globe without the need to seek costly re-validation of the analytical methods.

Martin Gadsby, chairman at Optimal Group, comments: “Accurate laboratory testing is pivotal for innovative research, knowledge generation, batch integrity and patient safety. However, it often diverts scientists from engaging in truly transformative and value-adding activities.

“To address these issues and meet current market demands, we are proud to launch the SciYbotic Labs series of automated laboratory solutions. These systems are able to optimize and improve analytical operations, benefiting pharmaceutical companies and patients worldwide. We look forward to supporting customers in the implementation of these highly effective automated setups that will help boost productivity and performance.”