Hiya, gr8 Q.
Short version - the machine creates tiny fluid filled sacs for AT1's lateral flow testing devices. The 'fluid' in the sacs is the precisely required quantity of buffer soln needed to carry the blood sample across the test strip to produce the negative/positive result lines.
Longer version - its actually the core of the AT1's device IP (and its IP moat) and one of 2 key differentiators that makes these 'integrated' lateral flow devices (the other differentiator being a needle). If you ever had a burn on your skin that caused a 'blister' to rise, that's pretty much the biological example of what this machine creates for AT1's devices.
On our skin the burn blister is made up of our skin itself and it fills with plasma + other cooling/healing components that eventually pop & leaks. In AT1's device, the blister sac has to made up on chemically inert walls to hold the buffer solution, be able to be filled with a variety of solutions depending on the test strip chemistry, be able to be caliberated & filled precisely as needed, be able to release the solution on demand (manual button press or electronic release), be able to produce different size blisters depending on device requirement and so on
IDE Group helped AT1 to design the machine + also manage the blister manufacturing process.
https://www.idegroup.com.au/atomo-casestudy.
Why this machine is so unique & protected by the company - no other company has engineered a way yet to create these blisters to store+release the buffer solution into the device. All other lateral flow test kits provide a separate buffer soln bottle (in the box), requiring the lab tech OR consumer, to drop the precisely required number of drops into the mixing chamber of the test device...and this is a key step where errors occur + there is much wastage of un-used buffer solution (since no one ships X drops of solution precisely per test...the bottle has to be ergonomically larger for the fingers to hold and press.
There is much R&D know-how involved in designing & building such a particular component manufacturing machine...which AT1 CEO also mentioned in an earlier Q&A call is not easy to produce without several years of R&D money + time.
Bonus fun fact - if you purchase any tablets from the pharmacy, those foil lined packs are called 'blister' packs by the medical industry - in this case, each 'blister' holds a tablet, that you pop out on demand.
