Radiopharmaceutical Production Robot: ABB Arms

A dose of a radioactive drug starts to decay the moment it is made, so it has to be produced, checked and shipped within hours. Speed and shielding matter more here than almost anywhere in pharma, and both are reasons plants now look at the radiopharmaceutical production robot. This post follows the work from the first cyclotron isotopes and hand operated manipulators behind lead glass to automated synthesis boxes and robot arms that fill and check vials. It covers the new radioligand plants opening in 2026 and where ABB cleanroom robots and cobots could fit, with the problems still to solve.

A radiochemist works at a shielded hot cell, using its glove ports and lead glass window. Photo: Talzir / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Cyclotrons, generators and tongs behind lead glass

Medical isotopes began in physics labs. In the 1930s Ernest Lawrence's cyclotrons at Berkeley made artificial radioactive isotopes, and his brother John used some of them on patients. The 60 inch cyclotron, finished in 1939, was built partly with medical isotope work in mind. Chemists handled the material with long tongs, lead bricks and distance. As activities grew, labs moved the work into hot cells: thick shielded boxes with lead glass windows and mechanical master and slave manipulators that copied the operator's hand through the wall.

Ernest Lawrence and his team at the 60 inch cyclotron in Berkeley soon after it was finished in 1939. Photo: Science Museum London / Science and Society Picture Library via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Brookhaven National Laboratory made the work easier in 1958 with the first technetium 99m generator, a small shielded column that hospitals could keep on site and milk for a fresh isotope each day. Technetium is still the workhorse of nuclear medicine scans. In 1976 Brookhaven chemists made the first fluorine 18 labelled FDG, the sugar tracer later used in most PET scans, and it was soon given to volunteers at the University of Pennsylvania. Early syntheses were done by hand in shielded cells, and each run exposed the chemist.

The first technetium 99m generator, developed at Brookhaven National Laboratory around 1958, shown without its shielding. Photo: Brookhaven National Laboratory via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

The first real automation was chemical. In 1986 a simpler nucleophilic route to FDG, published by Hamacher and colleagues in Jülich, fitted well into closed boxes of valves, reagent vials and heaters run by a computer. These synthesis modules sit inside a hot cell and take the isotope straight from the cyclotron target. Dispensing stayed manual for longer. A radiopharmacist would draw doses into syringes behind a shield, measure each one in a dose calibrator, and label and pack it, often working with tongs through glove ports. With half lives counted in minutes or hours, every second of handling was a trade between speed and the radiopharmacist's own radiation dose.

A shielded hot cell with master and slave manipulators at an IAEA training course; such cells are also used for medical isotope separation. Photo: IAEA Imagebank / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Radioligand plants and dispensing robots in 2026

The field is growing fast because of radioligand therapy, where a molecule carries a radioactive atom to cancer cells. The US approved Lutathera in 2018 and Pluvicto in 2022, and many more drugs are in trials. On 5 October World Nuclear News reported that Orano Med had opened its ATLab in Valenciennes, France, which it called Europe's first industrial scale facility for lead 212 targeted alpha therapies. The 25 million euro, 3,000 square metre plant can make up to 10,000 doses a year, and a similar site is being commissioned in Indianapolis.

The University of Washington cyclotron, which produces proton beams for therapy and radionuclides. Photo: Ikiwaner / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

On the same day GE HealthCare said it would buy SOFIE Biosciences, which runs a network of PET radiopharmaceutical production sites in the United States, for $945 million. Inside such plants, robots already do part of the dispensing. Vendors such as Comecer sell automatic dispensers that fill batches of vials inside a hot cell, and patent filings describe a robot arm in a dispensing cell that moves vials between a tray, the filling unit, a dose calibrator and a sample chute. Hospitals use smaller dose dispensers for PET doses.

A Philips PET-CT scanner, where tracers such as FDG made in a radiopharmacy are imaged. Photo: Partynia / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

ABB does not list a radiopharmaceutical customer that we could find, but its robots have the right building blocks. The IRB 1300 comes in a Clean Room version for sterile pharma work, and a compact arm can work inside a shielded isolator, much like the setups described in our post on aseptic fill and finish. A GoFa CRB 15000 or YuMi could handle vial loading, capping and labelling in the lower activity parts of a plant. Such a cell would first be modelled in RobotStudio to check reach inside the tight box.

An ABB IRB 1300 Clean Room robot. Photo: ABB

Where radioligand dose production is heading

Most of the growth will come from making therapy doses for named patients. Each radioligand dose is made for a set treatment date and has a shelf life of days or less, so plants run many small batches instead of one big one. Robots suit that pattern because they can repeat the same handling steps all day without adding to anyone's radiation dose. A robot arm that loads vials, moves them to a dose calibrator and packs them in lead shipping containers would cut the time people spend near the product. It would also log every weight, activity reading and vial code, which helps when an inspector asks for the batch record.

ABB YuMi assembling small parts beside a lab worker. Photo: ABB

Some nuclear medicine departments already prepare their own technetium and PET doses, and a small dispensing robot behind a shield could take over the daily routine of drawing, measuring and labelling. Compact cobots such as GoFa, which senses contact and stops, are the kind of arm that could share a hospital radiopharmacy with staff. That is still a possibility for ABB, and any such system would need approval under pharmaceutical good manufacturing rules.

A GoFa cobot at ABB's healthcare research hub. Photo: ABB

Radiation slowly damages electronics and lubricants, so a robot inside a high activity cell needs shielding, tough parts or a short service life, as robots used in nuclear decommissioning show. Cleaning and validating a robot for sterile drug production takes time and money. Isotope supply is tight as well, and a fully automated line still stands idle on a day when its lutetium, actinium or lead 212 precursor does not arrive.

Remote manipulators at work inside a hot cell at Idaho National Laboratory. Photo: Idaho National Laboratory / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

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