DOTmed Industry Sector Report: Lab Equipment Sales & Service

by Barbara Kram, Editor | March 25, 2009

The growing use of genetic testing remains a potential bright spot for DNA investigation and clinical lab work. But the pharmaceutical industry response to the recession, still being played out, will impact R&D. For instance, Pfizer is laying-off scientists to cut overhead and concentrate on a short list of conditions for its drug development pipeline.

On the equipment side, given economic forces, finding equipment inventory is becoming a challenge for third-party sales and service organizations.

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"If things are bad you'd think that used equipment would be better than new. But we get our equipment from the end user and they are holding on to their equipment longer. So service contracts are good business areas because people are hanging on to things and keeping them serviced and maintained. But acquiring the equipment has been very difficult," explained Gary Rogers, President, DAOT Enterprises, Inc.

As with other equipment, when considering pre-owned lab equipment, it's important to find a trusted vendor.

"The adage 'buyer beware' is more pertinent today than ever before. Buying from sellers who are not technically experienced and reputable in the laboratory equipment industry has the potential to cause many problems," cautioned Rob Rankin, President, Rankin Biomedical Corporation. He recommends those companies in the refurbished lab equipment industry distinguish themselves by building a reputable and recognizable brand name based on sales, technical, and operational knowledge of the equipment and by providing professional service after the sale.

If you can do that, then it makes sense to consider used equipment.

"We fix equipment to manufacturers' specs, such as calibration. We don't determine what a good working quality piece of equipment is, the manufacturer does when they build it," said Grubaugh. "Manufacturer specs are listed on the equipment and we either use OEM parts or go to their source and buy from whoever the OEM buys from. If it's not a proprietary item why pay a markup?"

In all, it seems there's a lot of science going on outside of the lab as well when it comes to equipment sales and service.