Inception Robotics is on a mission to automate repetitive pharmacy tasks and transform how hospital pharmacies operate. Headquartered in College Park, Maryland, we address one of the most pressing challenges facing pharmacies across the United States: a severe shortage of pharmacy technicians.
Pharmacy technicians play a critical role in daily operations, yet the national vacancy rate stands at approximately 22%, with an annual turnover rate of 21%, significantly higher than most other industries. In practical terms, if a pharmacy needs 100 technicians, it may only be able to hire 78, and of those, about 14 are likely to leave within a year. This persistent labor gap strains operations, increases workload pressure, and diverts skilled staff from patient-centered care.
To tackle the pharmacy staffing shortage, our team develops cutting-edge robotics and artificial intelligence solutions that automate time-consuming, repetitive tasks— empowering pharmacy staff to focus on high-value clinical and patient care activities.
We are proud to introduce our flagship product, MedSort, which is gaining strong traction among leading hospital pharmacies across the U.S. MedSort is a compact robotic system designed to automate the sorting of returned medications. By eliminating the tedious and error-prone process of manually inspecting and organizing unit doses, MedSort frees pharmacy technicians to focus on more impactful responsibilities.
With MedSort, pharmacies can significantly accelerate restocking workflows, reduce manual effort, and minimize medication waste.
Using MedSort is straightforward. A pharmacy technician simply loads a tote of unsorted returned medications and starts the system. MedSort handles the rest, delivering neatly organized medications according to customizable sorting logic tailored to each pharmacy’s unique workflow.
Powered by advanced vision technology, MedSort extracts critical information directly from medication packaging, including drug name, expiration date, lot number, and NDC— without relying solely on barcodes. This capability ensures that essential data, such as expiration dates not encoded in barcodes, is accurately captured from printed labels. This enables MedSort to automatically identify and remove expired or damaged medications.
MedSort can process up to 2,000 medications per cycle and sort them into as many as 80 different categories. Designed as a fully self-contained unit, it requires no network connectivity or external compressed air, making installation and deployment simple and flexible.
Our demonstration video provides additional insights into how MedSort operates. Hospitals across the country have already validated the operational and financial benefits it delivers.
If your hospital pharmacy is facing challenges managing returned medications, we would welcome the opportunity to connect and discuss how MedSort can help your team save time, reduce waste, and operate more efficiently.