As one of the hot emerging technologies in the IVD diagnostic market, liquid nitrogen lyophilized reagent beads have developed rapidly in the past few years.

The equipment process flow of the reagent freeze-dried ball is: lyophilized reagent bead pellets are formed → freeze-drying by Lyophilized bead machine → packing of lyophilized reagent beads

1. The formation of lyophilized reagent beads

Since 2018, Guangzhou Ascend Company has launched three series of lyophilized reagent bead bead systems, namely FSH-DS228-T desktop type, FSH-DS228-F vertical type, and FSH-DS528 fully automatic. According to the technological development, the lyophilized reagent bead forming system has been continuously improved and upgraded. After years of production line use and customer feedback, this type of equipment is currently mature and stable and meets the needs of different customers.

2. Freeze-drying by Lyophilized bead machine

The freeze dryer equipment is currently mature in technology, and customers have a variety of choices.

3. Packing of lyophilized reagent beads

lyophilized reagent beads have the advantages of convenient transfer, rapid reconstitution, and transportation and storage at room temperature. At the same time, they also have the characteristics of small size, light weight, static electricity, easy to break, and fast moisture absorption. Therefore, in the current process of lyophilized reagent beads, the packaging of lyophilized reagent beads is extremely challenging.

Common packaging forms of lyophilized reagent beads include: microfluidic chips, 8-tube strips, vials and special-shaped tubes.

Generally, during the preliminary development and small batch production of lyophilized reagent beads, they can be manually subpackaged in an isolator or drying workshop. 

This sub-assembly method is very simple and convenient. But there are also some shortcomings:

①The manual strength is not easy to master, which will easily cause damage to the ball and reduce the batch qualification rate;

②The efficiency of sub-assembly is slow, and it is difficult to adopt in large quantities;

③It requires people to operate through the glove box outside the isolator during sub-assembly, which is difficult to operate and consumes labor costs.

The Guangzhou Ascend technical team analyzed and summarized the above-mentioned ball characteristics, and developed and designed FSH-DS628-ST automatic packaging equipment:

•Equipment is suitable for fast dispensing of 2-50ul lyophilized reagent beads;

• It can be customized and dispensed into special-shaped microfluidic chips, special-shaped tubes, vials, 8-strip tubes/PCR tubes, etc.;

•Using special tooling fixtures and technological process, can realize the accurate and rapid distribution of small balls, at the same time avoid the damage phenomenon of small balls during the sub-assembly process, and reduce the batch difference during the sub-assembly;

• The number of channels can be customized according to the terminal product;

• Comes with static elimination function;

•The equipment is small and exquisite, and can be used in an isolator or a drying room;

Guangzhou Ascend Precision Equipment Co., Ltd. focuses on the research and development and manufacture of micro-fluid control systems. Based on leading precision ceramic pump technology, it provides overseas customers including the United Kingdom, the United States, Russia, Japan, Chinese listed companies and well-known IVD companies, as well as domestic first-class universities. Developed a variety of liquid nitrogen lyophilized reagent bead pellets and dispensing pellets system solutions, becoming a leading professional equipment supplier in this application field.