The future of life sciences is laboratory automation

"If it flies, floats or incests, by all means rent it. It's cheaper in the long run." This is one of the many gems of wisdom in the book How to Get Rich by British entrepreneur Felix Dennis . If Mr. Dennis were alive today, he might add laboratory equipment to the list of items that should be rented.

The appeal of renting something only when you use it is part of the appeal of the on-demand economy. Cars spend 95% of their time parked. By using Uber, we are democratizing car transportation. We also increased the utilization of expensive machinery. The same value proposition applies to laboratory equipment.

Cloud laboratory automation

Starting a company is much easier when you have access to millions of dollars worth of lab equipment and only pay for what you use. That’s the idea behind the emergence of cloud-based labs, where you can conduct almost any experiment with just a credit card.

Emerald Cloud Laboratory

A pioneer in this field is a company we first reported on in 2015 - Emerald Therapeutics: Cloud Robotics Lab. Since that article, the company has changed its name toE meraldCloud Lab (ECL) and received$92.1 million /strong>Total Financing. They now offer complete life science labs in the cloud, with new lab equipment coming online every quarter.

Little has been revealed about ECL's progress since its inception, but given that everyone in "Rona" is staying at home, we can only assume that their business is booming. An article from Carnegie Mellon University discusses how they plan to increase the use of ECL Cloud Labs products to train undergraduate students. Cloud labs are moving from the exception to the norm, and ECL isn't the only company to benefit.

Strateos Robot Cloud Platform

In our 2018 article on Lab Automation – Robots for Life Scientists, we looked at a company called Transcriptic that started providing lab automation services to synthetic biology giant Ginkgo Bioworks. Now Transcriptic has a new name - Strateos - and they've raised $44.3 million in funding to date. The new name came about last year when Transcriptic merged with 3Scan, a startup that uses computer vision and robotics to analyze tissue samples, slicing tissue at a rate of 3,600 slices per hour while taking images of each slice. Previously a manual process, 3Scan can now process approximately a year's worth of tissue samples in one day.

The combined company now offers a platform that has attracted the attention of some of the biggest names in the pharmaceutical industry. Earlier this year, Eli Lilly launched a drug discovery laboratory developed on the Strateos platform that includes more than 100 instruments and storage of more than 5 million compounds, all within a closed loop. Across the pond, another startup is also developing a laboratory automation system for drug discovery.

Automated drug discovery

Founded in 2016, UK-based Oxford startup Arctoris has secured$6.2 millionin funding to develop what they call “the world’s first fully automated drug discovery platform.” The platform is tailor-made for the drug discovery process to rapidly generate deeper, richer, and more reliable data for all drug discovery companies, including but not limited toInsilico and other artificial intelligence-driven drug discovery companies.

A great example of how the platform is being used is the work they are doing with Hungarian startup Turbine, which is using artificial intelligence to model cancer cells. When Turbine discovers new drug targets through simulations, Arctoris then validates them using its automated wet labs. All of the AI ​​drug discovery companies we have followed over the years will be potential users of the Arcctoris platform to test new hypotheses, collect data, advance projects from in vitro to in vivo testing, and satisfy regulatory agency requirements.

Drug discovery isn't the only niche application for laboratory automation.

Automated materials discovery

Founded in 2017, Massachusetts startup Kebotix recently emerged from stealth mode after raising $16.4 million in a disclosed funding round. They have developed a platform that uses machine learning and laboratory automation to help discover new materials. In one pilot project, the platform reduced lab supplies and labor fivefold. This is according to a VentureBeat article that discusses how Kebotix will focus first on molecular discovery for electronic applications, and then on new polymers and alloys.

Laboratory automation software

Founded in 2012, San Francisco startup Benchling has received nearly$112 millionin public funding to develop a unified platform to centralize and standardize all R&D data for lab researchers. With a 99% retention rate, the 270,000 scientists using the software clearly find its value. If you're a life sciences company doing in-house R&D on your own lab equipment, Benchling has become a must-have software solution, just like Salesforce is a must-have for any enterprise sales department.

An article in Forbes tells how one of Benchling’s investors found the company because all the life sciences companies in their portfolio were adopting the solution. This is because the software is also used in academia, and future employees and entrepreneurs are already accustomed to using it.

Laboratory automation is not limited to full-stack laboratory solutions like ECL and Strateos. Companies that produce laboratory equipment are increasingly integrating laboratory workflow automation into the hardware.

Laboratory automation hardware

On the hardware side, there are many companies developing laboratory automation solutions. We've previously looked at startup Opentrons, which is developing a pipetting robotic technology aimed at automating experiments, but there are also a number of private companies that are flying under the radar when it comes to lab automation technology. One such company is Nevada-based Hamilton Company, which sells automated liquid handling workstations and sample management systems. Automated chemistry systems from Swiss-based Chemspeed Technologies “condense” multiple instrument functions into a single platform, simplifying the required operations.

in conclusion

It's increasingly difficult for people who want to start a business to argue that this person is holding them back. Some of the most advanced laboratory equipment on the planet is now available to anyone with a credit card, so access to equipment is not an issue impeding success, at least in developed markets. The world’s information is available to anyone with an internet connection, but education is also not available.

Twitter critics often criticize wealthy self-made entrepreneurs without acknowledging the amount of work that goes into creating wealth. To quote Felix Dennis: “Luck happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Now, more people around the world can be lucky enough to create tomorrow’s life science breakthroughs.