How to choose a company for human biospecimen collection? Let us look through all the players in the biospecimens collection field...

How to choose a company for human biospecimen collection?

Science is moving forward and the world is in need of human biospecimens (HBS). Scientists are looking for biospecimen collection, which are crucial for their scientific research. Procurement managers from R&D, diagnostic and biotech companies scan the web to satisfy the biospecimens demand. Is that an easy task? What service to choose: global biospecimen vendors or biobankers, market places or private biospecimen companies?

Together we will try to find the answers to these questions.

Firstly, you need to choose what type of collection to use. There are two main ways to collect biospecimens: retrospective and prospective ones.

Retrospective?collection may be fast, as you get already banked samples, but you need to consider that you cannot influence or change processing protocol and will receive limited range of clinical data.

Prospective?collection allows the highest level of flexibility and study customization but needs more time vs. retrospective one. Once you have complicated study design or require unique sample processing only prospective collection may satisfy your needs.

Now knowing the difference between collection types, let us look through all the players in the biospecimens collection field and try to distinguish what could be their pluses and minuses.

Searching in the web you may find following providers of biospecimens:

·??????Biobanks

·??????Academies

·??????Hospitals

·??????Bio vendors

·??????Marketplaces

·??????Specialized biospecimens companies

So who are they and whom should you approach to reach your specific goals.

Biobanks and Academies?usually collect thousands of human samples, process in line with their own SOPs and put them on stock. They have their own scientific goals and collect samples accordingly. Usually they are using grants to make their living and act as non-profitable entities so not focused on services and business. Usually they are mainly focused on one type of disease or patient cohort.

·??????Pros: They may be highly useful when you need banked samples and have no time to run prospective study. Have almost unlimited biobanks capacities and mainly could be perfect partners for retrospective studies or help you with archive blocks or tissues or blood derivatives.

·??????Cons: Processing details or clinical data might not be sufficient. As services are not their business model you may face difficulties in communication.

·??????Budget: $$

Hospitals. Depending on the size may be a good source of human biospecimens. Clearly, their core business is patient treatment and they enter the biospecimens market in order to improve profitability and usually consider this part of business as complimentary. Physicians involved in studies (also called Primary Investigators) are overloaded with their daily routine. They usually badly tolerate this additional burden imposed by hospital administration and tend to minimize their participation in the study.

·??????Pros: You have direct access to primary investigators.

·??????Cons: Physicians are not motivated enough to contribute to your results which may cause low collection speed and insufficient level of clinical details in supportive documents. Due to low experience, processing and sample quality may also suffer.

·??????Budget: $$

Bio vendors?are specialized companies responsible for biospecimen procurement. This is their core business so usually you may expect a good level of expertise and appropriate support from the company’s project managers. They might collect samples from their own sources but mainly resell samples bought from other biospecimen companies, which affect the price level and makes biosamples traceability impossible. As biosamples collection is usually multicentric you get higher collection speed but may face heterogeneous sample quality. Often bio vendors have to reprocess samples in-house to insure appropriate quality level.

·??????Pros: High collection speed and good client service. Could be the best option if you need patients from a specific region / area or particular country (for example exclusively from the USA or China).

·??????Cons: Usually the sample source is unknown. As someone else does collection, you have no access to primary investigators, general communication speed slows down as all your questions, and comments are redirected to another company. Short notice changes in collection protocol, modification of inclusion and exclusion criteria are not possible due to the same reasons.

·??????Budget: $$$$

Marketplaces?are e-commerce platforms for biospecimen samples procurement. Usually you place a request and receive a price proposal. Some marketplaces may show the final service provider while others do not. Respectively first type of marketplaces benefits from transaction commission and additional services, second impose own mark-up, which may raise price significantly. As samples journey may look as direct delivery from the final service provider to buyer missing marketplace itself. Sometime marketplace acts as a transit point in biosample route to hide its origin. Quality assurance stays on the service provider side and fully depends on its goodwill.

Pros: No need to sign numerous contracts with different companies – it is enough to contract one marketplace with a single billing address. Some marketplaces provide ratings for their service providers which reflect the rate of successful projects and overall company reliability.

Cons: Extra fees to the marketplace. No additional QA.

Budget: $$$$

Specialized biospecimens companies?are specialized on pre-clinical trials and human biospecimens collection. Usually work in one or few neighboring countries providing a common patient cohort (for example Caucasus race). Highly skillful in biospecimen business due to precise specialization. Main difference from bio vendors – they do own biospecimens collection sites with direct access to physicians (PIs). If there is a need, you may easily speak directly to physicians involved in your study and be sure that everything runs smoothly in line with your requirements. Those companies are highly client oriented and able to tune their processes to your particular study needs.

·??????Pros: Sample traceability and direct access to physicians involved in the study. Flexibility and high orientation to client’s needs. No extra fees.

·??????Cons: Have limited archive samples capacities and mainly focus on prospective studies. Collection rates may be lower vs vendors’ proposals.

·??????Budget: $$

BIOMEDICA CRO belongs to the specialized biospecimens companies?and successfully operates since 2017. We collect human biospecimens through a broad network of partnered hospitals in Ukraine and supply them globally. Our company provides pre-clinical trial service in line with good laboratory (GLP) and good clinical practice (GCP).

Our key important differential advantage is own sample collection. By collecting biospecimens by ourselves, we guarantee the samples traceability and high quality level due to multistep quality control. BIOMEDICA CRO team is in constant contact with clinical sites as well as primary investigators and always ready to provide you with the latest collection feedback. Direct contact to physicians ensures their proper understanding of collections details and processing protocols.

Ethics is not just a buzzword for us. Clinical sites are included into our partner network only after obtaining IRB (Independent Review Board) approval and patients are mandatory consented so we exclusively act in full compliance with international and local ethical guidelines.

If you are a scientist or even professional procurement manager, you might be frightened of the amount of paperwork that you have to deal with. We in BIOMEDICA CRO may provide our basic contracts or use your corporate templates to make your life easier. Cooperation with BIOMEDICA CRO allows you to focus on your research and enjoy minimal paperwork.

BIOMEDICA CRO is ready to supply the following main types of human biospecimens:

·??????TISSUE SAMPLES,?Diseased & Normal Adjacent: fresh tissue, fresh frozen tissue, formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) blocks, histological slides

·??????BLOOD SAMPLES,?Various medical conditions & healthy donors: Fresh, Whole blood, Plasma, Double-spun plasma, Serum, Red cells, Buffy coat, Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells (PBMCs)

·??????OTHER BIOFLUIDS,?Various medical conditions & healthy donors: Sputum, Saliva, Aspirate, Swabs, Urine, Stool, Synovial fluid (SF), Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), and others.

If you need a reliable partner to source human biospecimens, BIOMEDICA CRO is here to help. Please email us to start our collaboration:?[email protected]?or visit our web site.

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