Overview
Nucleic acid purification is one of the few basic methods ubiquitous among scientists using molecular biology techniques to investigate processes such as gene expression, genetic diversity, protein function and molecular interactions. The Nucleic Acid Purification Dashboard was developed from responses to a 20-question survey of 488 scientists predominantly located in North America and Europe. This Dashboard reveals key market indicators for the nucleic acid purification market as a whole as well as for the following sub-segments:

• Plasmid minipreps (1-2 ml of culture)
• Plasmid midipreps (5-50 ml of culture)
• Large scale plasmid preps/maxipreps (100 ml or more of culture)
• Genomic DNA purification from cells & tissues and whole blood
• Total RNA purification from cells & tissues and whole blood
• mRNA purification
• microRNA purification

Percepta’s 2009 Nucleic Acid Purification Dashboard™ is a deep dive into the characteristics and dynamics of the market for nucleic acid purification products. This 2009 Dashboard provides a snapshot of the current market landscape that can be compared with data from the 2007 Nucleic Acid Dashboard, providing an ongoing story of how the market is adapting to new products, new competitors, acquisitions and new sales and marketing strategies.

Survey Methodology
In April of 2009, Percepta fielded the Nucleic Acid Purification Survey to a subset of the Percepta BioAnalytix™ Panel of life scientists. Individuals were invited by e-mail blast to click through to a webpage at perceptabioanalytix.com where the survey was hosted. Invitations were delivered beginning on April 2, 2009 and results collected through May 1, 2009. A total of 488 scientists participated in the survey, of which 433 are actively engaged in performing nucleic acid purification and 4 plan to use nucleic acid purification methods in the next 12 months. Results based on the aggregate of collected responses are revealed in this Nucleic Acid Purification Dashboard.

Important Note: This report only includes analyses related to the research market for nucleic acid purification products and not the market for products used in diagnostic assays.

Respondent Demographics
Respondents from the academic, government and commercial market segments are well represented. 52.2% of respondents work at universities/colleges/medical schools; 8.2% are employed at hospitals/medical centers. 13.8% of respondents work for biotechnology companies; 9.4% are employed by pharmaceutical companies. Overall, 25.0% of respondents work in industrial laboratories.

74.8% of respondents are from North America (66.6% in the United States and 8.2% in Canada), while 23.0% reside in Europe.

Junior (Lab Tech, Grad Students), mid level (Post-Doc, Lab Manager) and senior (Professor/PI, Group Leader) scientists are well represented in the data set, with the most cited job titles being Scientist/Senior Scientist (32.0% of respondents) and Professor/Principal Investigator (15.6%).

A wide variety of scientific areas of specialization is also evident, led by Cell Biology and Biochemistry (each indicated by 13.7% of respondents as their primary area of expertise), Genomics (13.0%) and Microbiology/Infectious Disease/ Virology (12.6%).

Small (1-5 scientists), medium (6-20 scientists) and large (>20 scientists) laboratories are well represented. 52.0% of respondents are from laboratories where between 1 and 5 scientists perform nucleic acid purification. 34.8% of respondents work in labs where between 6 and 20 people culture mammalian cells, while the remaining 13.3% are from labs where more than 20 people perform this technique.