De-nest and present filled glass vials and prefilled syringes for inspection/transfer in fill-finish

In aseptic fill-finish, sterile drug product is filled into thin-walled glass vials and prefilled syringes that arrive and move in nested trays. A robot must lift each fragile container out of tight nest pockets, present it for visual/automated inspection, and re-seat or transfer it without chipping, scratching, or cracking the glass or generating particulates. The objects are small, smooth, sometimes wet/cold, of variable fill weight, and frangible; they sit in the final, highest-value step of biologics production where each unit can hold high-cost biologic. The task is hard because grip force must be tightly modulated per container, slip must be sensed and corrected, and any glass-to-glass or glass-to-tooling contact must be detected before damage. AbbVie's explicit aseptic vial-and-syringe fill-finish business and its new small-volume-parenteral capacity make this a live operational area. We identified this through our own research; we have not confirmed the specifics with the customer directly. This page is our researched read — a starting point for that conversation.