Robot testing device fires interest from drug firms

Citation

(1998), "Robot testing device fires interest from drug firms", Industrial Robot, Vol. 25 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.1998.04925caf.007

Robot testing device fires interest from drug firms

Robot testing device fires interest from drug firms

Keywords Drugs, Medical, Novi Systems, Robots

Major pharmaceuticals companies are showing interest in a £250,000 robot whose amazing mechanical dexterity may revolutionise the production of drug inhalers.

The "Automated Andersen", as it is known, is the invention of electrical engineer Malcolm Smith (47) of Novi Systems Ltd, Maidstone, Kent, UK who has designed a novel device to capture and filter the doses fired from asthma inhalers and similar medical products.

The single robot grips and fires the inhalers so that the active ingredients can be quality tested to check that the correct amount of drug has been delivered over a range of different particle sizes. Normally this work is done by hand and is a meticulous, laborious and tedious operation.

Nine years ago he created a machine for Fisons to emulate a human hand shaking and firing an inhaler and has now gone on to produce the world's first automatic equipment able to control the Andersen impactor particle sizing device that is used by all the world's top drug manufacturers.

"The Andersen impactor is notoriously difficult to automate and many have tried but failed", he said. "Some of the parts of the Andersen are very difficult to handle but we have now finally succeeded ­ a fact which is attracting worldwide interest."

Malcolm Smith with his robot device which works in conjunction with a Mettler Toledo analytical balance

The robot's single arm operates in conjunction with a high precision laboratory balance supplied by Mettier Toledo Ltd of Leicester and cuts the time normally required to analyse active ingredients to a tenth of conventional methods.

One system has already been supplied to Astra Charnwood in Loughborough. Two more are under construction for Astra, another for Rhone-Poulenc Rorer Ltd and other prospective customers are waiting in the wings. He is now actively marketing the robot on the world wide web at http://www.novi. co.uk and recently exhibited at the Portable Inhalers Conference in London.

He said that an important part of the system is a Mettler Toledo AT200 analytical balance accurate to one ten thousandth of a gram which is used to weigh the inhalers before they are discharged. The robot then transfers the inhalers back to the balance which automatically verifies that a dose has been fired and records the weight of dose delivered.

"One analyst in a laboratory can perform typically only three to five Andersen tests a day whereas the Automated Andersen can handle as many as 30", said the inventor, "The savings in labour costs are huge and we are confident that we are on the verge of a big breakthrough."

For further information contact the Marketing Department, Mettler-Toledo Ltd, 64 Boston Road, Beaumont Leys, Leicester, LE4 1AW UK. Tel: +44 (0) 116 235 7070; Fax: +44 (0) 116 236 6399.