If you have been staying abreast of our progress, you would know that we needed to re-evaluate some of our pricing based on the validations we have tackled this past quarter. I want everyone to know that this re-evaluation is complete and as a result, we recently updated our pricing. At Intermountain Forensics, we use a pricing structure that is based on our costs. There is no profit involved. For cases that are aligned to our mission statement (cold cases, unidentified bodies, sexual assault backlog reduction and post conviction "innocence" testing) we use cost + 15% pricing model to overcome our costs and reinvest in the laboratory. For all other cases, we use cost + 30%.
There are two main reasons that our costs have increased slightly as of this latest update. In the spirit of full transparency, we want to explain what has occured and why our pricing has increased slightly as a result.
Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) Samples/Run decreased, thus costs increased.
As a result of our validation, we found that we could not run the number of samples we expected to in a "batch" or "run" and get the same level of quality. Basically, if we ran less samples in a batch, we got better results on the DNA profile we obtained.
Make no mistake, quality is our #1 goal and we will not sacrifice.
Therefore, we made the decision to run less samples on each of our runs using the MiSeq FGx. Our batch sizes will now be 32 samples (down from 96) to maintain the highest possible quality.
Because of this, our price per sample went up and that is reflected in our new cost structure. We assure you it is still competitive and as low as we can possibly make it, but it has increased in this latest update.
GenTegra DNA Stabilizing Tubes are now utilized for all of our DNA extracts.
The second change in our pricing is a feature that we are adding to help us to maximize our ability to get a good DNA result as well as allowing us to ship our DNA extracts back to our client as inexpensively as we can and allow them to store our extracts at room temperature. The GenTegra DNA stabilizing agent tubes (https://gentegra.com/gentegra-dna-2/) allow us to dry down our extracts in a safe manner to "concentrate" the DNA and give the best opportunity to get a good result.
As well, the laboratory will dry these DNA extracts down in a protected tube, ship the extracts back to our clients and this will allow easier long term storage and better results if future testing would be necessary.
This adds some cost to our sample processing (some of which are offset by less expensive shipping costs). But in the end, this will allow for better quality and better storage for our clients. We feel this is a value add as well as a quality decision.
As always, if there are any questions, please reach out to us! We strive to be as transparent as we can and I hope these price increases will not be an undo hardship for our partners.
Lastly, if you have received a quote for our services that have the earlier pricing structure on it, Intermountain Forensics will absolutely honor the quoted pricing.
We look forward to the day when we can offset all of our costs with grants and donations. It is our goal to bring these services to the world free of all costs. We appreciate your help in some day achieving that milestone.
Thank you for your support,
-Danny