Business


Figure 11: Interest in a wider offering of instruments available for rent/lease


YES for certain specific types of instruments only 26%


NO 5%


© HTStec 2012


YES for all instruments 69%


References 1 Lab Instruments Rental Trends 2012 Report, published by HTStec Limited, Cambridge, UK, October 2012.


of the total outright purchase price survey respon- dents would consider paying annually to lease/rent a new laboratory instrument (Figure 10). The majority (69%) of survey respondents would like to see lab instruments vendors/suppliers move towards a wider offering of rental/lease agreements for all instruments. A further 26% would like to see vendors offer certain specific types of instruments (mainly the high-end expen- sive instruments) available for rental. Only 5% of respondents did not want to see or consider lab rental of instruments (Figure 11).


Discussion So why haven’t instrument vendors made a con- certed effort to promote and offer rental options in life sciences before? Quite simply they didn’t need to rent instruments previously, adequate budgetary resources were available for most purchases and there was no unified demand from the life sciences community. Vendors clearly can make more money by selling instruments; innately they dislike the burden of having to service/maintain machines, of losing value as their assets depreciate and accumulating a pool of ageing equipment. It comes down to supply and demand, if an end user needs it enough and they cannot access it any other way, out- right purchase becomes the de facto norm. But an economic slump com- parable to that which currently exists has not been encountered before in the contemporary laboratory era and


Figure 12: Labcyte is open to rental or lease of its Echo® range of acoustic liquid handling systems


72


if instrument unit sales/placements are ever to approach pre downturn levels, everyone needs to adapt, learn new ways to do more with less and apply new thinking to lab instrument usage. However, vendors do not deserve all the blame as there has been resistance from corporate procure- ment departments in the past to ‘approve’ such transactions, or to facilitate monthly rental pay- ments from a consumables or some general discre- tionary budget, and the respective internal process- es at vendor’s accounting (ie shifting from their preferred billing as a single lump sum to, say, mul- tiple instalments spread over a long period) for the most part did not exist. Equally so, potential pur- chasers should not be put off from enquiring about rental options just because they are not openly pro- moted or initially advertised. For example, Labcyte has indicated it is open to offering rental or lease of its Echo® acoustic liquid handling systems (Figure 12) and some customers have taken advantage of this approach. Based on HTStec surveys and Labcyte contacts, even though there are dramatic annual cost savings on tips, samples and reagents creating a rapid payback for Echo systems, some customers still need the flexibility that alternative purchasing approaches provide. In conclusion, lab instrument vendors should be encouraged to inves- tigate all possible substitutes to the traditional out- right purchase model as potential customers have never been more receptive to consider alternatives than they are today. Lab instrument rental or lease merits inclusion in the mix of potential purchasing options and vendors could do more to increase awareness that they are open to discuss alternative purchasing scenarios.


DDW


Dr John Comley is Managing Director of HTStec Limited, an independent market research consul- tancy whose focus is on assisting clients delivering novel enabling platform technologies (liquid han- dling, laboratory automation, detection instrumen- tation and assay reagent technologies) to drug dis- covery and the life sciences. Since its formation nine years ago, HTStec has published more than 80 market reports on enabling technologies and Dr Comley has authored more than 40 review articles in Drug Discovery World. Please contact info@ htstec.com for more information about HTStec reports.


Drug Discovery World Spring 2013


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80