PacBio maintenance plan

[mster_scientist]

Hi there,

We were recently awarded a grant to purchase a PacBio Sequel 2 NGS. It won't see much use for some time, but our organization demands we have a service contract on the instrument after the warranty is up. The price for the service contract is $58,000 USD, which is not feasible currently. Does anyone use third party maintenance plans for PacBio machines, and if so, are they less expensive? Thank you.

[Bukowski]

I don't believe there are any such services, at least I've never come across them.

You do not want to operate a machine of this capital expenditure without a service contract. You will have engineer callouts, you will require regular PM's of the machine, you'll want the remote diagnostics. Paying for these out of hand will come to more than the cost of a service contract, quite quickly.

If you can't afford a service contract, outsource your sequencing. The best you can do is negotiate with PacBio for a discounted service contract after your warranty period, opt for a multi year one to reduce costs, and perhaps have a payment plan that isn't annual.