Panasonic banks on robot drug dispensers

Panasonic isn't the first company to turn to robots as a means for dispensing drugs, but it looks like it's set to become one of the bigger players in the still fledgling field, with it announcing today that it's developing a robot that it hopes will rake it about 30 billion yen (or $315 million) by 2016. Unfortunately, Panasonic isn't quite ready to actually show off the robot just yet, but it says it could be making the rounds at some Japanese hospitals by next March, and head into the United States and Europe sometime after that. It's also not ready to do much talking about specifics, with it only going so far as to say that it "does not look humanoid" but rather looks like "a cabinet with lots of small drawers" (no doubt somewhat like the Pyxis bot pictured above), and that it'll be able to store medical data for each patient and sort out prescriptions for up to 400 patients in about two hours. That cabinet won't come cheap though, with Panasonic estimating that it'll cost "several tens of millions of yen," or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[Via TG Daily, image courtesy Wikipedia / Jeremy Kemp]

[Monkey with glasses @ Jul 7th 2009 2:58PM]

Now if i could just order one and put it to work for on the streets.

[Precurse @ Jul 7th 2009 4:49PM]

Hookers are cheaper for that

[Monkey with glasses @ Jul 7th 2009 2:59PM]

Oh and equipped it with a change dispenser.

[carl.whims @ Jul 7th 2009 3:01PM]

Gotta love seeing a Pyxis product on Engadget. Never thought I would see the day!

[ilovethewaggle @ Jul 7th 2009 3:30PM]

I'm sure HIPPA would have a thing or two to say about that robot's right to privacy.

[Bill @ Jul 7th 2009 9:06PM]

agreed. never thought I would see a Pyxis product show up on Engadget. that is pretty funny.

[Denver_80203 @ Jul 7th 2009 3:00PM]

What happens if you enter the elevator with the robot?

[Matt Ferens @ Jul 7th 2009 3:03PM]

I don't think I want to know....

[NeoJew @ Jul 7th 2009 3:05PM]

NEVER enter the elevator with a robot.

[TJ @ Jul 7th 2009 3:08PM]

It's not over, until the robot says he loves you.

[Look_Around_You @ Jul 7th 2009 3:10PM]

AWESOM-O is a "Pleasure Model


Ahhh , I think you mistake this for the Panasonic AWESOM-O "pleasure model".

[mugzy81 @ Jul 7th 2009 3:16PM]

Because then you'd see Kenny Baker getting out to take a stretch after dispensing all those pills.

[ilovethewaggle @ Jul 7th 2009 3:24PM]

The robot calls an elevator specifically and waits for an empty one. They have these already that deliver food, they're kind of fascinating to watch as they call out everything they are doing like rounding a corner, waiting for an elevator, mowing down patients pushing walkers, etc.

[belard @ Jul 7th 2009 3:40PM]

Rape drug

[bk7 @ Jul 7th 2009 7:01PM]

It eats you and spits out your remains as pills.

[Wwhat @ Jul 7th 2009 8:33PM]

I wonder if any employee has a t-shirt saying 'please don't enter elevators with humans'
Damn nerve of that robot thinking he's better.

[Wolfticket @ Jul 7th 2009 3:01PM]

Damn elevator hogging robot.

[B3astofthe3ast @ Jul 7th 2009 3:06PM]

What KIND of drugs are we talkin??

[Hitnrun @ Jul 7th 2009 3:14PM]

It probably will have opiates in it, so if you enter the elevator you'll be all alone to mug it i guess,,,

[Anticrawl @ Jul 7th 2009 3:59PM]

Empty your drawers or the Walkman gets it!

[Speney G @ Jul 7th 2009 3:07PM]

"And, now Your Highness, we will discuss the location of your hidden Rebel base. Please take two of these"

[Tutti @ Jul 7th 2009 3:11PM]

NEED A Dispenser here !

[Andrew @ Jul 7th 2009 3:14PM]

so thats what they were talking about on Nurse Jackie. it sure would put pharmacists out of jobs some places. that would suck to get replaced by a robot.

i suggest we worsen the economy by replacing a third of the fast food work force with these machines so they can finally give me the right amount of freakin chicken nuggets!

[carl.whims @ Jul 7th 2009 3:17PM]

McDonald's is already doing this with soda dispensing. Do we really need to put teenagers paid minimum wage out of work too?

[Anticrawl @ Jul 7th 2009 3:55PM]

Yes do we really need to put the b.. dangerous local minorities out of work for the sake of decent food service? Who will man the drive-thru speaker barely speaking any known recorded english dialect?

I keed I keed, I happen to be one of those minorities, but it doens't excuse the lack of service. Then again if I were paid that amount per hour I'd probably be blazed out of my mind and yell at customers for wanting more than a 1/3rd filled container of fries too.

[paulfrankreid @ Jul 7th 2009 4:58PM]

Not pharmacists (someone has to fill them, and pharmacists don't dispense tablets against popular opinion, technicians do that). More likely nurses will be more scarce now that they don't need someone to fetch the pills.

[keithwwalker @ Jul 7th 2009 3:15PM]

Just remember, even with a robot, the first one is always free....

[Alistair loveless @ Jul 7th 2009 3:18PM]

Put a groovebox and some pulsing ground effects on that sucker and this would do wonder for the old ravescene (now gone "LOVEFEST?!? wtf?)

[iPeg @ Jul 7th 2009 3:26PM]

It's slow, dispenses drugs – and has NO dreads?

[psykoCommenter @ Jul 7th 2009 3:37PM]

It should also play music like those old school ice cream trucks that used to drive around :)

[belard @ Jul 7th 2009 3:42PM]

I bet it also presses both buttons when it wants to go up like some people I know.

[NeoJew @ Jul 7th 2009 4:11PM]

Then presses the buttons for every floor before exiting the elevator.

[Chip @ Jul 7th 2009 4:14PM]

They've got the lab specimen version of this on some hospitals, like Presbyterian Dallas, TX. Slow is an understatement, but do drug dispensers need to be fast? (wait, forget I said that). I really don't see how this thing is going to work. Who makes sure the correct patient takes all of their prescribed meds? BTW, if it's like the robots at the Houston VA, they have their own elevators with doorways far too narrow for American butts.

[Ioden @ Jul 7th 2009 7:24PM]

EXTERMINATE!

[edgar wong @ Jul 7th 2009 4:38PM]

3 1/3 patients per minute. maybe it has a potato cannon-like dispenser

[Anticrawl @ Jul 7th 2009 4:44PM]

They could pay me that 315 million and I'd hand out pills and ride elevators for the rest of my life.

[lanejasper69 @ Jul 7th 2009 11:00PM]

Are you hiring? ;-)

[Anticrawl @ Jul 7th 2009 11:38PM]

Actually hell I'll do it for just 80million, 2 million a year til I retire. You'll never have to maintain me, insurance covers my injuries and I cost no amount of money to develope. Sometimes I wonder the purpose of these overly expensive boxes they call robots. Who in their right mind would waste the money on this? Hell at 2 million a year I won't need to steal drugs from the hospital, I can get the best whenever I want.

[Anticrawl @ Jul 7th 2009 11:39PM]

Not to mention humans are cheap to replace and you can't literally or figuratively hack them open to get all the goodies inside (which will be done within a year they are out).

[Derigo @ Jul 7th 2009 5:09PM]

I, for one, welcome our new drug-dispensing robot overlords.

[Wwhat @ Jul 7th 2009 8:34PM]

Welcome them on the floor where you are when they arrive.

[Matt @ Jul 7th 2009 5:57PM]

The real news here is the huge breakthrough in handwriting recognition.


(I know it probably doesn't do that. It's a joke)

[andrew_steger @ Jul 7th 2009 8:10PM]

isn't this thing how fred savage escaped from Nasa in Flight of the Navagator?

[mb @ Jul 8th 2009 9:11AM]

Also, my first assessment.

[rxse7en @ Jul 7th 2009 9:48PM]

I need a lortab bot at my house...as long as thing doesn't administer meds rectally.

[lanejasper69 @ Jul 7th 2009 10:42PM]

"2 masked men were seen driving away in a blue van after ripping the "mdei-bot" from assigned duties at city hospital today" the robot contains an undisclosed amount of good shit in it"

[Anticrawl @ Jul 7th 2009 11:23PM]

1) Enter service door from the roof.

2) Attach wench

3) Drop down to the top of elevator

4) Cut the power for the singular camera in said elevator

5) Open emergency hatch on roof of elevator

6) Lower wench/attach to robot

7) Jump in elevator and get high on hydrocodone (Because anyone who spends that much time trying to steal a robot obviously isn't right minded enough to follow through with the plan)

8) ????

9) Profit

[Anticrawl @ Jul 7th 2009 11:25PM]

Seriously though one doesn't need to steal the robot for the good stuff. All you have to do is go to an ER, make sure you aren't actually ill (because they don't give good stuff to seriously injured patients) then make a terrible attempt at being ill or hurt and wait for your script.

[Anticrawl @ Jul 7th 2009 11:27PM]

I've been in a few situations where I had to get bones placed after being hit by a car and one when I was assulted/stabbed and both times the doctors more or less said to "walk it off." Then a week or so ago I go in for a mild infection and they give me 15 20mg oxycodone pills.

[EMaster @ Jul 8th 2009 9:26AM]

You know what this thing looks like? That Robot in "Demolition Man" that sells and says "Eat recycled food".