I don't believe there is one single answer to your question as important
of part of the cost is volume (of work) dependent. I can tell you what we
did and all I can say it turned out to cover APPROXIMATELY and ON AVARAGE
the running costs of the procise (I suppose you can make the same
calculation for the HP and, possibly, the cLC).
ABD-PE has item on their cataloge of supplies for 750 cycles (and for 250
and 500) kit (Cat# 401713). Take 1/750 of it as a rough estimate of the
reagents cost per cycle. For each run you must include the starting costs
consisting of cost of reagents for three precycles and standard cycle, and
the costs of disposables such as filter, seal, biobrene etc. and the
analysis costs (paper, etc). To make things reasonably practical we
include in basic run charge a minimum of 10 cycles - BRR (basic run rate).
A different rate for the additinal cycles (on top of the first 10) is the
ACR (additinal cycle rate). Periodically we run a standard protein
sequence of 15 cycles. We calculate the running cost of the this
caliberation run, devide it by the avarage users' runs in the period and
add this to the BRR.
Finally, we take the service charge requested by PE service people for
their annual contract togather with any of the constant spending such as
UPS upkeeping, regularly changed spare parts (I think the detector lamp
too is added if it is not included in the kits) and calculate the constant
specific costs per user run.
Now, the minimal run rate (of the first 10 cycles), is the sum of the BRR,
the constant specipic cost and the fractional calibaration run costs,
multiplied by a factor of 1.1, to allow for unexpected additional costs
(such as machine failure and need to rerun). The ACR (additinal cycle
rate) is calculated from the reagents kit prices rounded somewhat up and
multiplied by a safety factor of 1.25 (the extra value is to balance off
additional cycles we often run in vain ie w/o uasable results). Still the
extra cycles rates "subsidise" the short runs, since they do not include
the constant costs and change the ballance between them.
I hope I have not been too long and obscure in my outline and that you can
concoct some reasonable calculation of your own. But most importantly, I
should stress. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. See in the end
of a year or so if the calculation indeed covers your costs.
Good Luck, and all the best
Dr. Ariel Gaathon
Bletterman Laboratory Research Laboratory for Macromolecules
Interdepartmental Equipment Unit
The Hebrew University Medical School
Jerusalem, P. O. Box 12272, ISRAEL 91120
Tel. (+972)26758489, Fax. (+972)26414069
On Fri, 17 Apr 1998 Jacek_Mozdzanowski-1@SBPHRD.com wrote:
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> To: abrf@aecom.yu.edu
> cc:
> From: Jacek Mozdzanowski-1 @ SB_PHARM_RD
> Date: 17-Apr-98 07:18:55 PM
> Subject: Pseq cost
> Categories:
>
> Dear protein sequencing specialists,
>
> Does any of you know per cycle cost (labor and cost of the instrument
> excluded) of N-terminal protein sequencing using:
> 1. HP Protein sequencer
> 2. Procise
> 3. cLC Procise
> What I need is comparison of per cycle costs for all the above instruments.
> Any help will be gratly appreciated
>
> Jacek Mozdzanowski
> Bioanalytical Sciences
> SmithKline Beecham
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