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Custom Biospecimen Collections

Prospective, custom biospecimen collections to match the exact specifications of your project
With an in-house donor center and database of donors, along with an established network of hospitals and care centers, Precision can source virtually any disease type or sample type biospecimens needed for your project.
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Precision has the sites, experience, and donor database to support prospective collections needs

Precision has developed our process to support custom collections through over 25 years of experience in protocol design and execution of biospecimen collections. In addition to our in-house donor center, our network of medical specialists spanning over 90 disease areas paired with our global logistics, processing, and storage services, enables Precision for Medicine to deliver the right specimen, in the right matrix, at the right time.

90 indications with collections capabilities
150 collection sites
4500 donors in Precision's in-house donor database
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Custom collections through Precision’s in-house Donor Center

Precision’s in-house donor center can provide faster turnaround times than collections via outside sites.

  • Collection are done via one approved protocol saving time required to set up a new protocol for each collection
  • Kits can be made on-site quickly
  • Specialized processing can be done on-site: no transit time is needed prior to processing, meaning samples can be shipped same day 

    In addition, we maintain a curated and continuously growing donor database of both disease-state and healthy donors, routinely screened for positive viral detection to ensure a reliable database of “top-tier” donors
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Custom collections through Precision’s site network

Our site network is composed of hospitals, investigator sites, and care centers geographically distributed to allow for broad or targeted collections. The network sites focus on disease-state donors, and can be used as sites for patient recruitment when a collection is needed for a specific indication or donor demographics beyond what can be collected through our in-house donor center.

Precision routinely collects in these disease categories

Healthy

Gastroenterology

Nephrology

Pediatric

Autoimmune/inflammatory/allergy

Genetic Diseases

Oncology

Renal

Cardiovascular

Infectious Disease

Hematology

Respiratory

Dermatology

Liver Disease

Ophthalmology

Reproductive Health

Endocrinology

Neurology

Orthopedic

The custom (prospective) collections process

The custom collections process through Precision's Donor Center is streamlined and rapid because we are able to utilize established protocols and source donors from our database of already vetted donors.

For collections through our site network, they process generally takes longer to approve a protocol and source and recruit donors. The below process depicts a typical collection through our site network.

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Step 1

Planning

Our experienced project managers will  work directly with you to understand your study needs and develop a turn-key solution to provide:

  • Planning
  • Feasibility
  • Study design
  • Regulatory review & approvals
  • Study start-up and management
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Step 2

Collection and logistics

Our team of clinical operations specialists manage every aspect of your protocol including manufacturing, training, collecting, monitoring, movement, and reporting.

  • Study kits
  • Patient recruitment
  • Enrollment and collection
  • Data capture & reporting
  • Specimen logistics
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Step 3

Specialized processing, analysis, or biostorage

If your samples require specialized processing or analysis, our in-house labs support routine to complex analyses, and we have multiple biostorage facilities.

  • Custom processing
  • Biomarker and specialty labs
  • Biostorage under any condition

Understanding prospective vs. retrospective collections

Prospective Collections

Biospecimens collected prospectively can be collected via on ongoing protocol (such as to collect fresh, healthy samples through Precision’s own Donor Center), or can be custom collections where a specific patient population is recruited and collected from.

Benefits


  • Collect the exact specimens needed for your research
  • Premium biospecimen sample quality through custom sample collection kitting and processing
  • All sample types can be collected including matched tissue and blood or uncommon sample types (stool, fingernails, etc.)

Prospective collections are ideal when fresh samples are needed, or when the biospecimens needed are highly specific and can’t be readily sourced from an existing retrospective biorepository.

Limitations


  • Timelines can be longer to obtain samples (but healthy samples from Precision’s donor center can be delivered rapidly)
  • Cost per specimen is generally greater

Retrospective Collections

These are IRB-consented biospecimens previously collected and stored for future use. These are generally frozen (cryopreserved) samples, or FFPE tissue blocks or slides, or remnant diagnostic specimens (such as respiratory swabs).

Benefits


  • Rapidly available
  • Range of frozen and FFPE samples available
  • Often a broad range of patient demographics and indications are available

Limitations


  • Specimens are limited to what has been previously collected
  • Limitation on fresh samples