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to discuss the launch of SPT’ s‘ firefly ®’ – an intelligent all-in-one liquid handling device designed boost the speed, efficiency and precision of genomic research. The firefly ® has since gained great momentum across a number of sectors within the life sciences industry. In July 2025, Manufacturing Today reconnects with Rob to take a deep dive into the SPT’ s evolution over the past 12 months as it eyes further product development and expansion. He begins our conversation by offering an update on the progression of firefly ® since its launch.
“ In the last 12 months, we’ ve completed some further iterations of our firefly ® platform – including the introduction of a new module called firefly ® +, which is starting to take root in the market,” Rob shares.“ firefly ® + expands the capabilities in a highly space efficient manner, extends user walk-away time, increased labware capacity, as well as thermocycling capability. This offers a more hands-free approach, so that the research scientists can spend more time on the scientific work and less on the manual management of the instrument. As a part of that, we’ ve also released our automatic tip loading head, which enables the pipetting head to change tips on a regular basis and, again, reduces the amount of manual intervention needed. These two innovations have really enhanced the performance and utility of the firefly ® platform and have made it a much more complete product, one that really helps the researchers to automate their experiments and progress their drug development work faster and more efficiently.
“ A lot of the growth that we’ ve seen over the last year has come from the launch and growth of firefly ® in the market. As with most new products, it takes time to get fully established, but it’ s now getting great customer placements all over the world. We’ ve had a lot of positive feedback from customers throughout the life sciences industry, including academia, biotech, pharmaceutical, and diagnostic companies.”
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