DougS...I may have given the wrong impression. I'm not talking in terms of long term commitment or licensees. I would find it prudent to make arrangements with several providers, especially if I foresaw a potential surge in my forensics business.
Sometimes rapid growth is the most difficult to manage. It can create severe budget strain and in the case of a small company with limited manpower, your inability to produce can destroy a reputation before it is even built.
Testing for the markers themselves is fairly routine. If these other labs are running Ancestry tests, they can run DNAWitness tests (afterall, it's the same test). They can also perform the STR testing if DNAP gets a client that is looking for a one stop shop. DNAP has the ability to receive the test data via internet connection to Sarasota. All it takes then is for DNAP's software to generate the solution.
Although I certainly don't know this to be the case, if I were running things I would have made similar contingency plans. Near term, I want to be able to efficiently execute ANY business that comes my way. In the mean time, I am lining up a platform provider and developing a chip based test to address my long term goals.
I believe their long term plan is for the government labs themselves to be running the tests, and accessing the software via a secure internet connection to generate the solution. All it takes is a well established chip based genotyping platform provider and an equally well established worldwide network of secure servers. BTW, the same internet provider could provide the link to the CODIS database to facilitate rapid integration to the Federal system.
The labs buy chips and reagents from the platform provider. DNAP earns a small royalty on every kit sold. Then, every time a lab accesses the service via the web, they are charged. Billing would be nearly automatic, accounting greatly simplified, and manpower requirements almost non-existent.
The vast majority of the increase in Federal spending is going to flow to government labs to purchase new equipment, hire technicians, and perform the testing in-house. That's the money we need to tap, and that would be my plan. And of course, the private labs could purchase the test the same way down the road, so it's not as if they are being used and would be left out long term.
Of course, all of this is JMHO. Boy, I bet you're sorry you responded! lol
Talk to you later, my friend.
W2P
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