I agree with everything Tony Henwood has said as my staining
 experience is very similar.
 I have only recently purchased the Bond Max. The main 
selling point  was that it was much cheaper than the Ventana
for reagents ( about 60%) even though it is a closed system instrument.  It must be remembered that when you purchase their reagents you are paying for all of the time that has been spent by the manufacturer optimisig their system.  This is often time not available in a busy clinical laboratory.

Also it is an unfortunate fact that the bean counters that hold the 
purse strings would much rather a one off cost to purchase
an automated system than commit to the cost of new staff even 
though the recurrent costs may outweigh the cost of an extra
pair of hands. As a manager I have many responsibilities including 
running a quality, efficient and cost effective service.  However I also have a responsibility to my staff and if I can get a walkawy instrument that will make their life easier rather than grind them into the ground because some beaurocrat in an office far removed from the coalface
decides that their benchmarking barometer does not indicate that
 more staff will be coming down with next shower then I am more than happy to accept the costs involved.

What I do not like particularly about the way these companies charge
is that they will charge a different cost for reagents depending on the
workload of a laboratory.  We are lucky that we are a smaller lab wwhich is part of an organisation made up of 33 labs across the state, which means we can get a price based on the organisation workload rather than our own.  If there are a lot of users in the US of the Ventana perhaps you could get a consortium going, use  the power of numbers, and negotiate a better price.  Not likely to happen, just a thought.

regards




Tony Reilly
Chief Scientist
Anatomical Pathology
QHPS-Prince Charles Hospital
Rode rd Chermside Q 4032
Australia
Ph: 07 3350 8543
Fax: 07 33508546
tony_reilly@health.qld.gov.au


>>> "Tony Henwood"  05/31/06 2:19 pm >>>
Yes,

We have a Bond Max and can't speak more highly of it. I have been doing
IPXs since 1979, using the old Sternberger's PAP Complex method and
later using ABC and then Polymer and unfortunately I had to concede that
my manual results were never as good as what the Bond's can produce now.
Results are consistent with no failed runs.

It might be that Novacastra is now part of the Vision group of companies
and their expertise and quality reagents have a lot to do with it.

Regards

Tony Henwood JP, MSc, BAppSc, GradDipSysAnalys, CT(ASC)
Laboratory Manager & Senior Scientist
The Children's Hospital at Westmead,
Locked Bag 4001, Westmead, 2145, AUSTRALIA.
Tel: 612 9845 3306
Fax: 612 9845 3318




-----Original Message-----
From: histonet-bounces@lists.utsouthwestern.edu 
[mailto:histonet-bounces@lists.utsouthwestern.edu] On Behalf Of Andrea
C. Bilger
Sent: Wednesday, 31 May 2006 11:46 AM
To: histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu 
Subject: [Histonet] Ventana vs Dako


I ave been reading with interest the mailings about the 2 top IP
stainers.  We have 2 Ventana XT's in our lab.  Have found them very
expensive to operate as everyone else has.  The Pathologists wanted us
to continue with Ventana due to only having one knowlegable IP tech and
wanting consistancy.  You have to have some knowlege of IP's even to
operate the Ventana machines.  Some reps make it sound goof proof but it
isn't.  We have had trouble with consistancy in a couple of detection
kits.  One was stronger and all our stains were too hot.  Adjusted the
stains and the next kit was back to the weaker strength.  Had to adjust
all the stains back again.  What a pain in the ......

Has anyone had any experience with another IP stainer from Vision
Biosystems?  I looked at one at a National Histo convention and it
sounded like a cross between the Dako and the Ventana.  I think it was
more of an open system but used bar codes on the slides.  Antigen
retrieval was done on the stainer. Reagents were supposed to be cheaper
and not proprietary.  It had a feature where you could start a stat
stain after the run was started.  I would be interested to hear anyones
experience with this machine.

Andrea 
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