Forced Degradation Robot
Labman has supplied two Forced Degradation Robots to Pfizer, one at the Sandwich site in the UK and the latest one in La Jolla, San Diego. The later robot was installed in 2001 and was used for preparing samples of candidate drug powders prior to stress testing and analysis. Over a period of 3 years the robot had various upgrades to further enhance the functionality and increase the level of automation for the degradation process.
Main Features
- Feeds powder sample in to 30ml vials, typical 15mg target
- Vials are automatically capped with septum sealed screw caps
- Dilutes powder samples with a range of diluents
- Mixes and sonicates the powder samples
- Labels the vials with date, time, operator name and sample contents
- Stores the samples in the specified degradation test module:
- Heated and shaken in up to 6 separate heater shakers each with 24 vial capacity, configurable temperatures and speeds
- Store at 4°C or less, capacity for 14 vials
- Store vials in a sun test light box, vials are rolled to ensure maximum exposure
- Subsamples from each vial taken at configurable intervals during the degradation sequence e.g. sample every 2 hours over a 48 hour period
- Subsamples are stored in one of two autosamplers and queued for injection to HPLC
- Automatically prepares standard and blanks and performs configurable bracketed injections to HPLC
- Fully automated HPLC run sequence is generated from the robot control PC, all sample analysis reports printed automatically after injection and analysis
- Fully configurable sample process editor to specify degradation parameters for each individual sample
