Since the 1700s scientists have been using devices for volumetric analysis of liquid, but it was not until the 1960s that the first micropipettes were introduced. Handling liquids accurately is fundamental for the productivity of all life science laboratories and, therefore, significant technological advancements have been made since then. It was in the 1980s that the first true automated liquid handling workstation was introduced. These are systems that automatically dispense a select quantity of liquid into a container. The automation of repetitive liquid handling tasks ensures that laboratories reduce processing time, decrease sample contamination and increase accuracy. Included in this category are liquid dispensers, dilutors and XYZ workstations.

Liquid dispensers enable users to dispense an exact amount of reagent or sample into a microplate, tube or any other container. These are widely used for proteomics assays in high-throughput environments. Dilutors accurately dispense the medium or desired liquid into a container according to dilution instructions. This is particularly useful in microbiology and food testing laboratories, but other applications such as environmental analysis and forensics are also popular. The third type of instruments are XYZ workstations, the most popular in the liquid handling category. These come in a variety of configurations that can suit any requirement and adapt to flexible throughputs. These systems act similarly to manual pipettes, holding and dispensing volume, typically with an arm that moves in the x, y and z directions, reaching across the platform.

The largest markets for automated liquid handlers are hospital and clinical, pharmaceutical and biotechnology labs. The need for accuracy in the clinical arena as well the large number of samples that those laboratories need to process daily make hospital and clinics a perfect target for automated liquid handling sales. The demand for routine tests, particularly nucleic acid–based ones as well as high-throughput ELISA applications, are fueling the demand in those industries. Pharma and biotech industries also have a particular need for precision in highly regulated environments that can be overcome by the use of automated systems to replace manual pipettes.

In 2017, the automated liquid handling market was around $900 million. Tecan is the market leader, with its Fluent automation solutions, first introduced in 2015, joining the well-known Freedom EVO and the Tecan D300e Digital Dispenser. The new systems have a precision down to 200 nL and rapid set-up of normalization, sample transfer and reagent distribution. Fluent Gx, a system specifically designed for regulated environments such as clinical laboratories, will be launched in 2018. PerkinElmer is the next largest vendor, with its JANUS workstation, which has been on the market for the last decade. Festo recently launched a novel capping/de-capping option as an add-on for the JANUS. The latest market releases were in February and include the MiniTasker from Sirius Automation and the SimPrep from Teledyne Technologies.

Automated Liquid Handlers at a Glance

Leading Vendors:

• Tecan
• PerkinElmer
• Beckman Coulter (Danaher)

Largest Markets:

• Hospital and Clinical
• Pharmaceutical
• Biotech

Instrument Cost:

• $10,000–$180,000