Introducing Product-on-Demand Biological Research Reagents

The general order of operations in the bioreagent industry begins with a developer observing or forecasting a need and developing a product. The supplier then supplies that product to customers by showing that the product will suit their existing needs. An alternative order in our industry is after a new discovery in the form an enzyme reaction mechanism, affinity binding, or biological system is made in lab, someone realizes that discovery could be made into a product. If the idea is picked up by a commercial R&D team, the underlining mechanisms of the discovery are then exploited for particular use and reagents or kits will be built around it. The new products are introduced to the market by convincing potential users that they will make their research better, cheaper, or faster.

From a supplier’s point of view, if the current processes for developing new products have been working, what’s the incentive to change? From a researcher’s point of view, well, do they have any other choices? If something is not commercially available, someone will just make it in the lab if they need it. Some of us still remember the days when a graduate student needed to make his own restriction enzyme because NEB didn’t sell it. However, there is a disconnect between how much new knowledge is being gained every single day in tens of thousands of labs and how small a portion of that knowledge pool is being turned into more powerful tools to make the next round of research easier and more cost-effective. For instance, when an important gene’s promoter is recently defined by a functional study in 293T cells, how soon do you expect to test the signals that influence transcription from that promoter in the primary cells you are working on? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could simply buy a vector that will express a promoter-driven reporter ready to be introduced into the primary cells in your lab instead of having a graduate student design, construct, learn and try to make a lentiviral vector in the next few months?

And yes, there is the route called custom projects provided by a few bioreagent companies. The prices are often inhibiting for the reasons that the price needs to cover for labor on industry pay scale, materials, indirect, and profit. Additionally, since the service provider does not take ownership of the product, the work of researching the relevant pathways and making construct designs is left to the user.

There is a better way. A company can plan product groups, lines, and packages based solely on the demonstrated importance of a system such as signal pathway or a family of molecules like miRNA. The plan can project to use the most advanced technologies, even accompanied with full product descriptions and vector maps. However, it would be a great waste of money and material if nobody would ever need it, right? One way of dealing with the initial cost is that we make the first kit upon the first order. The customer that places the first order of a new product will get a deep discount off the shelf-product price on what used to be a custom project. They might even have the opportunity to provide input on the product design prior to production. From a supplier side, we will benefit by having an opportunity to initiate a new product without major investment, which in turn would keep our overall prices low for such innovative and advanced products.

This model should help speed up the commercial application of any new biological findings, lower the cost and price of bioreagent products, and encourage interaction between researchers who normally do not work with each other to produce better products for increasing the efficiency of research.

Discount of the week 060110-060710: Any virus packaging project initiated this week gets additional 10% discount that can be used with first time discount and other pricing advantages. http://www.allelebiotech.com/allele3/Services_Lentiviral_Retroviral_Packaging.php

New product of the week 060110-060710: Columns for Miniprep and Gel Purification, ABP-PP-COLM100. If you can make your own buffers or have leftovers from any miniprep or gel purification kits, get these high capacity columns and lower your costs by up to 70%!

Tags: bioreagent, biotech, biotechnology, Clontech, EMS, Invitrogen, kits, Merck, Millipore, NEB, promega, reagents, research field, Roche, Stratagene, tools

How I started my company and why–Inaugural Event by San Diego Entrepreneurs Exchange (SDEE)

For current graduate students, postdocs, and holders of other “in-transient” positions in bioscience-related fields today, a persistently resounding question on our minds is “What path should I follow at the end of a long and ragged journey of training?” Interestingly in our industry, like downhill skiing you see in the Winter Olympics, once you start one path it is not an easy switch to get on another.

Many of the Ph.D.s in biomed share the general view that an independent research position typically at an academic institute or non-profit organization such as San Diego’s local Salk, Scripps, or Sanford—Burnham, is the goal of the many years of training. Others soon realize that there are numerous research jobs at biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies that will make good use of their expertise, experience, and unique background knowledge in a particular field. And of course there are those who “defect” to different industries that may or may not directly relate to their extensive experience in wet labs, such as working in intellectual property laws, clinical trial management, biomedical sales, business development and management.

Research in major pharmaceutical companies (big pharma) normally focuses on a project with set goals, milestones, and layers of monitoring and management. That is how a large team can function together and get the tasks done in a timely manner. Working in smaller biotech companies can be much more flexible, researcher-initiated, and in many ways fun. On the other hand, you will be required to do much more than reading papers, designing experiments, obtaining and interpreting results. Starting a small biotech company is by no means an easy path to take, but if done correctly with some luck and a lot of determination, it can be a very rewarding career. You will get to utilize to the maximum extent of all your intelligence, knowledge, vision, and personal relations. You also have the opportunity to do real cutting-edge research in various areas, and see the fruits in journal publications, grant awards, as well as in the wild wide market.

The San Diego Entrepreneurs Exchange (SDEE) was founded by local San Diego entrepreneurs in order to provide a voice for the early stage technology startup, to encourage new entrepreneurs, and to sponsor networking and educational events that help develop the skills necessary to bring funding and business to the San Diego area.

The inaugural SDEE event to be held Wednesday March 10th at 5pm. It will help answer some of the questions you may have been thinking about regarding starting or working in a startup biotech company. Allele Biotech’s founder and CEO Dr. Jiwu Wang will be among the speakers. Ten years ago Dr, Wang was a postdoc at UCSD with an NIH fellowship, right before he started Allele with a number of NIH small business innovative research grants. He will talk about the ultimate “academic freedom”–doing any research you want but completely at your own risk– as the reason to start a technology-focused company, and the lessons he learned the hard way about running a lab vs organizing a business. Other speakers include CEOs from a number of San Diego biotech companies with great stories to share with postdocs and others. The talks will be brief yet informative, and on-site interactions are encouraged. The Sanford-Burnham building 12 is outside the main campus, with plenty of free parking. Click here for more details about the event. http://www.allelebiotech.com/allele3/SDEE-First-Event-Announcement.pdf (at AlleleNews). Let us know if you are coming by emailing to events@sdentrepreneurs.org

New Product/Service of the Week 02-15-10 to 02-21-10: Viral shRNA design and packaging services, packaging 2ml virus at 10e8 TU/ml for less than $1,400.

Promotion of the Week 02-15-10 to 02-21-10: FREE spreading beads (ABP-CE-CCCSB100, 500) to go with any competent cell order.

Tags: biotech, biotech careers, biotech jobs, biotech startup, pharmaceutical companies, postdoc jobs, research positions., San Diego Entrepreneurs Exchange, SDEE

Submit Your Pictures and Enter to Win $100 in Cash

Allele Biotech is holding another fun contest to give back to our loyal supporters and everyone has the chance to win $100 in cash! We are looking for interesting and relevant pictures, illustrations, and computer generated art that pertains to any Allele Biotech Product or service to replace the flashes on our homepage. If it is chosen to be used we will give you $100 cash!

Check out our technical data sheets, read our past blogs, and even use your own lab experience and impressions with Allele Biotech Products to come up with your entry. There are over 1000 products to choose from so everyone should have lots of inspiration!

All you have to do to enter is submit your picture to our facebook inbox! The picture has to be of your own creation and/or one to which you own exclusive rights. Response time and prizes will take about a week.

Let your creative juices flow and you could get $100 in return. Your picture could be funny, serious, or even super nerdy!

Used to promote our Sapphire(TM) Baculovirus Expression Service

All photos, illustrations, and computer generated graphics (aka. “the picture”) submitted must be lawfully owned by entrants who submitted them. Pictures that are not chosen will not be used in any way by Allele Biotech. Winners may collect their prize via cash, check, or a one-time Allele credit of $100 good toward any Allele Biotech purchase. Allele Biotech has full rights to pictures selected for use in Allele advertising and winners must forfeit any future rights to the picture. Contest to run indefinitely and to be terminated at any time.

Tags: cash prize, contest, submit pics for cash, win $100

Francis Collins On the Job

Dr. Collins did a town hall meeting style announcement his first day as NIH Director on Aug 17th, 2009. He laid out his view for the NIH: more funding (good), encouraging young scientists (good, average age for first own funding for US biologist is 42, not good), and staying open in communication with society it is serving.

The NIH has $30.9 billion budget for 09 and 2010 thanks to the stimulus addition of $10 billion/year. However, it will feel dried up after two years if the budget plan remains as is. The Obama administration does not seem to want increase the basic research but instead focus more on health care management.

Collins is a well admired director and established scientist. However, it may be a little concerning that he might be too much into “big science” and organized efforts. I don’t know what they teach in graduate classes now but from what I was told 20 years ago curiosity-driven science is the best science and that was what got the US to the dominant leadership in biomedical fields.

Talking about nurturing young scientists, big programs and big labs controlling most grants by proposing big science seem trendy these days. The fight to become one of the big guys in a small, crowded field is a really daunting path for young researchers to tread. The big guys have the say from publication to funding and often times the unpleasant thought and bitter taste of competing against a scientific juggernaut turn young researchers away.

Tags: big research, Dr. Francis Collins, NIH budget, NIH director, Obama's research policy, young researchers in US

Allele’s Online Community

Allele Biotech’s participation in social networking sites (Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace has been successful over the past few months! We initiated contact with our customers via these websites not only to provide an easy way to let people know about our newest products and promotions but, most importantly, to ensure better customer service through an easily accessible forum for questions, comments, and yes, even criticisms. We are not like those other companies that are so large that your business and opinions do not matter to us. We at Allele Biotech need and appreciate our customers and reward your patronage and participation in these social networking forums with special promotions and customer service that really lets you know we value your online community membership. Your research goals are our research goals!

Several times a week our tweets will inform you about great deals like FREE SHIPPING on select products ordered within a specific time frame.

Our regular blogs found on all three of our sites are used to converse on a variety of topics from SBIR grants to fluorescent proteins to skin care!

On facebook and myspace you can submit technical questions on protocol or products and receive SAME DAY answers; you may also send comments and suggestions for improvement which will be seen by our head scientist and executives. Your opinion counts at Allele! We began this networking concept as not only a way to better reach our customers but, more importantly, as a way for them to better reach us.

Become a friend, fan, or follower to any one of the sites today and receive a $30 discount off your next order!

Tags: Allele customer service, allele social marketing, allele tweets, Facebook, myspace, research goals, same day troubleshooting, twitter