Merck Partners with Opentrons Labworks, Inc., supporting Lab of the Future
23.1.2025 14:00:00 CET | Business Wire | Press release
Custom robotic workstation automates company’s broad portfolio of biology assays for academia, biotech, and pharmaMeets growing need for autonomous tools that boost throughput and reproducibilityProvides customers with verified and automated workflows
Merck, a leading science and technology company, and Opentrons Labworks, Inc., a leader in lab automation and accessible robotics, announced a multi-year agreement to automate assay kits on a custom Opentrons Flex® workstation.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250123723506/en/
Custom Opentrons Flex® workstation available mid-2025 (Photo: Business Wire)
Scientists and engineers will collaborate to develop and verify platform workflows utilizing Merck’s broad offering of automation-enabled assays. Together, the custom workstation and automation-enabled assays will deliver increased consistency and higher throughput by reducing manual processing and repetitive tasks with a user-friendly robotic system.
“Our customers are prioritizing tools and technologies that improve reproducibility and productivity, allowing them to focus on more complex tasks that take their science further, faster,” said Jean-Charles Wirth, Head of Science & Lab Solutions for the Life Science business of Merck. “Our partnership with Opentrons reinforces our focus to automate and digitalize the lab - supporting scientists at all stages with tools that can increase efficiency, safety, and success rates of delivering new potential therapeutics.”
Customers can place orders for workstations and assay kits from Merck starting mid-2025. Applications will include broad workflows across protein sample preparation, molecular, cell, and other biochemical and chemistry workflows launching throughout the length of the agreement.
“Part of our commitment to making lab automation as accessible as possible is finding partners who share a similar vision,” said Jonathan Brennan-Badal, CEO of Opentrons. “Merck Life Science is a proven leader in terms of the breadth and quality of products they offer for pharmaceutical development and manufacturing, and we’re excited to combine that with our ability to provide world-class automation, service and support.”
By combining the automation expertise and service excellence of Opentrons with the powerful R&D, supply chain, and quality systems of Merck we will deliver reliable products streamlining research from sample prep to analysis for immunodetection, protein research, enzyme technology, genome editing, omics research, pharmaceutical development, service and testing and cell culture.
This adds to Merck’s existing Biology innovations to increase Life Science lab productivity, like the Millicell® DCI Digital Cell Imager that allows for accelerated cell culture analysis with an intuitive interface while also adding to the company’s commitment to provide next-generation biology solutions such as their recent acquisition of HUB Organoids Holding B.V.
About Merck
Merck, a leading science and technology company, operates across life science, healthcare and electronics. Around 63,000 employees work to make a positive difference to millions of people’s lives every day by creating more joyful and sustainable ways to live. From providing products and services that accelerate drug development and manufacturing as well as discovering unique ways to treat the most challenging diseases to enabling the intelligence of devices – the company is everywhere. In 2023, Merck generated sales of € 21 billion in 65 countries.
Scientific exploration and responsible entrepreneurship have been key to Merck’s technological and scientific advances. This is how Merck has thrived since its founding in 1668. The founding family remains the majority owner of the publicly listed company. Merck holds the global rights to the Merck name and brand. The only exceptions are the United States and Canada, where the business sectors of Merck operate as MilliporeSigma in life science, EMD Serono in healthcare, and EMD Electronics in electronics.
About Opentrons
Opentrons Labworks, Inc., a disruptive life science company and the current market leader in entry-level lab automation, accelerates innovation in research and healthcare through its integrated lab platform, which includes business units Opentrons® Robotics and Neochromosome™. Opentrons has raised over $200 million in funding and achieved unicorn status based on its innovative technologies. The Opentrons Flex® is Opentrons’ newest generation of liquid-handling lab robots, offering open-source accessibility and compatibility with generative AI tools. Opentrons Robotics provides thousands of institutions with flexible, easy-to-use lab robots, automating R&D operations and making robotics, a vast open-source library accessible to life sciences researchers worldwide. Opentrons is used in labs at the top 20 academic universities in the US and 14 of 15 leading global biopharmaceutical companies. Learn more at https://opentrons.com/.
All Merck press releases are distributed by e-mail at the same time they become available on the Merck website. Please go to www.merckgroup.com/subscribe to register online, change your selection or discontinue this service.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250123723506/en/
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
GIGABYTE Unveils “Future Landing” at COMPUTEX 2026 as Implementation Becomes Critical to Scaling AI12.5.2026 03:00:00 CEST | Press release
GIGABYTE Technology, a global leader in high-performance computing, is taking its most comprehensive end-to-end portfolio for AI infrastructure to COMPUTEX 2026 under the theme "Future Landing." As AI transitions from training into large-scale inference and real-world operation, GIGABYTE addresses the industry's most pressing challenge: not whether AI can be built, but how quickly and reliably it can be deployed, operated, and sustained at scale. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260505299592/en/ GIGABYTE Unveils “Future Landing” at COMPUTEX 2026 as Implementation Becomes Critical to Scaling AI At COMPUTEX, GIGABYTE organizes its showcase around three states that define the lifecycle of production AI infrastructure. Ready: integrated systems that have been fully built, simulated, validated, and prepared for deployment. Deployable: modular clusters engineered for rapid implementation across diverse environments.
INNIO Group Announces Filing of Registration Statement for Proposed Initial Public Offering11.5.2026 21:49:00 CEST | Press release
INNIO Group ("INNIO"), a leading global distributed energy solutions provider, today announces that it has publicly filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") relating to a proposed initial public offering of its common shares. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260511389675/en/ INNIO Group Announces Filing of Registration Statement for Proposed Initial Public Offering The timing of the offering, number of shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined. INNIO has applied to list its common shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol "INIO." Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley are acting as joint lead book-running managers for the proposed offering. BofA Securities, Barclays and Citigroup are acting as book-running managers for the proposed offering. Baird, BNP Paribas
Only 7% of Companies Achieve Full Compliance as Global Expansion Increases Legal Complexity11.5.2026 15:00:00 CEST | Press release
47% of general counsels say beneficial ownership rules pose the biggest risks to legal operations44% lack confidence in meeting cross-border data security requirements As businesses accelerate their global expansion in 2026, compliance fails to keep pace. In fact, only 7% of organizations report full compliance across their global entities, according to a new study by CSC, the leading provider of global business administration and compliance solutions. CSC surveyed 350 general counsel (GCs) and senior legal professionals across Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific to examine how their teams navigate international expansion, regulatory pressure, and the increasing adoption of artificial intelligence (AI).¹ The findings appear in CSC’s latest report, General Counsel Barometer 2026: From Complexity to Control. Most organizations report partial compliance, with over half (53%) estimating they are 50–75% compliant, and a further 35% placing themselves between 76%–99%. This leaves just 7%
IFF Opens Vanilla Innovation Center in Madagascar11.5.2026 14:15:00 CEST | Press release
Advancing science‑led flavor innovation where vanilla is grown IFF (NYSE: IFF)—a global leader in flavors, fragrances, food ingredients, health & bioscience—today announced the opening of its Vanilla Innovation Center in Madagascar, reinforcing vanilla as a strategic and priority tonality for IFF and strengthening its ability to innovate at origin. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260508110162/en/ IFF's Vanilla Innovation Center in Madagascar “The opening of the center marks an important step in how we approach vanilla innovation,” said Adam Jańczuk, Ph.D., senior vice president, research, creation and design, Taste, IFF. “By strengthening our presence at origin, we connect science, creativity and sustainability more closely, responding to climate changes, safeguarding quality and creating value across the supply chain.” Located in Toamasina, Madagascar’s principal seaport, near vanilla growing areas and post‑h
ARIS Recognised as a Leader in Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Process Intelligence Platforms, Believes This Reinforces Its Role in Enabling Enterprise AI at Scale11.5.2026 14:00:00 CEST | Press release
ARIS, the process context foundation platform for enterprise AI deployment, today announced its recognition as a Leader in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Process Intelligence Platforms. This is the fourth consecutive year that ARIS has been recognized as a Leader in the report and the company believes it underscores a continued commitment to innovation and growth as enterprises focus on turning AI ambition into measurable business outcomes. While technology has advanced rapidly, companies are struggling to operationalise AI across complex operating models. ARIS sees this recognition by Gartner as a reflection of its strength in delivering a single unified platform for process intelligence, providing the context layer on which G2000 organisations can successfully deploy and scale agentic AI. “AI is moving from experimentation to execution – but many enterprises are finding it difficult to scale,” said Guillaume Bacuvier, CEO of ARIS. “The reason is simple: AI lacks the context it need
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom