First fully-automated drug discovery unit 'to increase productivity by five to 10 times'

The world’s first fully-automated drug discovery facility is to be built in Oxfordshire, UK.

Hands-free molecular discovery will take place at the unit at the government-funded Rosalind Franklin Institute in Harwell, promised to produce new drugs up to 10 times faster.

The announcement was made by the UK’s Business Secretary Greg Clark on Wednesday, with the hope that the facility will end the slow and painstaking process of drug discovery that often takes more than a decade and is extremely expensive.