Merck Partners with Opentrons Labworks, Inc., supporting Lab of the Future

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.

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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/.

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