ABB Robotics and Roche Diagnostics start a global collaboration on robots for clinical laboratories

ABB Robotics/Industrial robots and cobots

ABB Robotics and Roche Diagnostics partnered to automate clinical laboratories with two systems: robots for handling and organizing pathology slides in digital workflows, and mobile manipulators for transporting samples between instruments in central labs. The goal is to relieve understaffed labs of repetitive work using physical AI systems trained on real-world data.

• Pathology systems organize slides; mobile arms move samples between instruments to accelerate diagnosis-to-treatment workflows.
• Roche estimates 70% of treatment decisions rely on diagnostic tests, making lab speed and consistency critical.
• ABB's physical AI learns from real data to adapt to dynamic laboratory environments and enable flexible automation.
• Targets workforce shortages and rising diagnostic demand in modern healthcare systems.