Biopreservation and Biobanking - Ziath - 2

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HENDERSON ET AL.
survey gave us some clues to the level of business planning
and indications that biobanks are professionalizing, the participation
was small and may not represent the wider biobanking
community. Hence, we acknowledged that the results
and any interpretation had limitations.
To achieve a greater sample size and to ensure better
representation of the global community, we decided to extend
the scope of the survey and do more extensive sampling
of biobanks worldwide. In doing so, our aim was to gather
more information about the types, size, and setup of the
biobanks taking part, although we made it clear that the
scope of the survey was to focus on sustainability of research
biobanks. Hence, potential participants were informed
that the purpose of the material and data stored in
their biobank should be for biomedical research only and not
for therapeutic or diagnostic purposes, and the survey should
be answered with that in mind.
Following the analysis of the pilot survey results, we expanded
the survey to clarify specific areas, and we continued
to ask about (1) information on the biobanks they represent,
(2) business planning practices, (3) level of utilization of
the existing collections, (4) their users/customers, and (5)
extent of marketing/advertising. This was done to collect data
on levels of existing business planning, marketing activities,
and sustainability. We extended the number of questions
in each of these areas and added more specific questions on
cost recovery, sources of income, and performance measures.
This article focuses on the status and effectiveness of biobank
business planning in developing professional structures
with associated successfulmarketingmeasures to enable broad
and sustainable support for internal and external projects.
Material and Methods
The focus of the survey was to ask questions about biobanking
and business practices in biobanks globally. To receive
responses from the biobankers around the world, the
survey was created and coded into the Survey Monkey online
tool.a Our plan to reach biobankers in many areas of the
world included translation into several languages. We found
contacts that would verify the translation of the survey in
Spanish, German, and French.
The survey was originally coded in English in April 2017
and included 37 questions (Supplementary Appendix S1).
The questions were sent in an Excel file to biobank colleagues
in France, Spain, and Germany to translate the
questions into their native languages. Once it was translated,
the translations were coded into Survey Monkey, and the
link to the survey was sent back for a final verification to the
translators and alternates to make sure the translations as
coded were completely understandable. For the Chinese
survey, we sent the 37 questions to a colleague in China to
translate the survey and to put it within a tool that could be
used to reach the biobanks in China.
The survey was initiated in English, Spanish, German,
and French in late June 2017 and stayed open until January
2018, allowing for the Chinese survey to be initiated and
closed at the same time as the other version. The English,
Spanish, German, and French versions were advertised with
three major campaigns by the authors and several organiahttps://www.surveymonkey.com
zations
in the biobanking sector (ISBER, European, Middle
Eastern & African Society for Biopreservation and Biobanking
(ESBB), Biobanking and Biomolecular Resources
Research Infrastructure (BBMRI) country nodes, and various
connections throughout the community). The majority
of the responses from the English, Spanish, and German surveys
were received in July 2017. The bulk of the responses to
the French survey were received in September. The Chinese
survey was coded in local software and opened across China.
Subsequently, the raw data were translated and delivered back
to the authors. The raw data from the other translations were
downloaded from Survey Monkey in three data sets, and then
all data were combined to complete the analyses.
A descriptive analysis of the data was performed using
Microsoft Access 2013. As is customary with these types of
surveys, the data reported by the participants are assumed to
be given, but responses are not always complete. A monitoring
and data cleaning step usually does not take place.
This, in turn, severely restricts the possibilities of statistical
analysis, as the individual groups have unbalanced records.
Results
A total of 276 biobanks participated (China 65, France 40,
United States 34, Spain 27, Germany 24, Australia 23, and
rest 63) (Table 1). Each response came from an individual
biobank, although it is possible that a biobank was also part
of a multicenter network. More than half of the biobanks
(51.4%) are academic biobanks, 21.7% hospital-based biobanks,
and 8.7% governmental biobanks. Seventy-eight
biobanks (28.3%) have a business plan (BP+), 75 biobanks
(27.2%) have a business plan in progress (BP-IP), and 118
biobanks (42.8%) have no business plan (BP-); 5 biobanks
(1.8%) gave no answer to this question (Fig. 1).
Approximately two-thirds of BP+ biobanks plan to regularly
update their business plan, and another quarter plan to
revise it as requested by their organizations. In BP-IP biobanks,
one-quarter plan to periodically update their BP, and
one-half plan to revise it as requested by their organizations.
In academic biobanks, 28.2% have BP+, 26.8% BP-IP, and
41.5% BP-; hospital-based biobanks have 18.3% BP+,
40.0% BP-IP, and 41.7% BP-; and governmental biobanks
have 29.2% BP+, 16.7% BP-IP, and 54.2% BP-.
Biobanks, classified as BP+ and BP-IP, respectively, report
that they more actively market their samples (75.4%/
76.3%) than BP- biobanks (51.1%) (Fig. 2). They also
communicate more regularly with their customers (BP+/BPTable
1. Country of Origin
of Participating Biobanks
n
China
United States
France
Spain
Australia
Germany
The Netherlands
United Kingdom
Canada
Rest of the world
Total
65
34
40
27
23
24
11
15
9
28
276
%
24
12
14
10
8
9
4
5
3
10
100
https://www.surveymonkey.com
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