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In the aseptic manufacture of pharmaceutical products, the requirements placed on the machines used in production have increased more and more. Due to new regulations, manual work steps are increasingly being automated in order to increase the quality of pharmaceutical products and to be able to ensure their safety.

In the past decades, the loading and unloading of freeze dryers was largely carried out manually. Automatic loading and unloading has been used more and more for around 20 years.

Robust and flexible solutions that meet all regulations and ensure safe handling of the pharmaceutical product must be found in order to modify processes in existing freeze-drying systems in line with the requirements, but also for the construction of new aseptic production lines with freeze dryers.

The loading and unloading of freeze dryers is one of the most complex applications to be implemented using robots. The problems for pharmacists are, on the one hand, the qualified and validated processes for existing systems, but also the maximum production capacity when planning new systems. In most cases, the packaging materials are predefined and in existing systems, trays or

frames are often used to load the freeze dryer. The use of trays and frames in new systems should be avoided in the planning stage, as they not only limit the maximum capacity of the freeze dryer, but also have an impact on the freeze drying process.

The core of this presentation will address the points mentioned above, but concepts for the realization of robot-based loading and unloading systems will also be shown on the basis of case studies. These case studies will deal with the loading and unloading of existing freeze dryers as well as with the construction of new systems.