Biopreservation and Biobanking - Ziath - 4

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HENDERSON ET AL.
Advanced degrees in biobanking have been established at
several universities across the world,13-15 and classes in
business management for core operations are being conducted
as stand-alone training and tools (16, add SBA on
side note) or included in conferences.3,4 Biobankers are now
taking the opportunity to be trained to develop business
plans,17 which includes training in analysis of cost of collection,
processing, operations, staffing, training, quality
control, governance, marketing, stakeholder engagement,
cost-recovery and disaster-recovery planning. There are
also tools18 and case examples19-29 on cost-recovery and
business planning from the existing biobanks to aid others in
this area.
It is good news that biobanks around the world have established,
or are beginning the process to establish, business
plans to support their biobanking operations. It is clear that
research organizations are still in the early ''wave'' of becoming
professionalized, as we see that 44% of respondents
in our survey have not yet established their business plans.
Based on the responses, no one sector can be singled out
as leading the charge in developing business plans for their
biobanking operations. The larger the total collection size,
the higher the percentage of biobanks that have established
business plans or are in the process of developing them. This
suggests that the burden of cost and maintaining quality of
large collections have been recognized as a driver for the
organization to become more professionalized.
It might be an interesting follow-up to collect additional
survey data to correlate the level of core biobank funding
with the collection size and the level of professionalization,
including staffing numbers of each biobank. One might
speculate finding more developed staffing matrices and
professionalization of operations (business planning) in
larger and more well-funded biobanks versus those that are
less well funded, but this could be likely an oversimplification
without the available data.
We can also speculate that it is possible that larger biomedical
organizations, such as government or industry, may
have centralized business capacities that are not being
considered as part of the biobanks' operations role and response.
A reported lack of a business plan in this scenario
could be their misinterpretation because the business planning
is being managed outside of the biobank.
The majority of the responders from hospital-based biobanks
are fairly new, being established in the last 15 years.
This may explain the higher percentage of hospital-based
biobanks with business plans in development versus those
already established. We expect that for those with business
plans in place, this has been a relatively recent endeavor;
thus, the absence of a clear plan to periodically update the
plans. More experience in monitoring the metrics of the
plans against the ''real world'' in the biobank operations
should guide the need for updates and revisions to the
business plans. To be most effective, the business plan must
be a ''living document'' that guides the biobank toward the
measurement of metrics that leads to sustainability and
relevance for their organizational needs.
Once an organization has initiated the process of gathering
their data to build a customized business plan for their
biobank, the key elements of the plan, including stakeholder
engagement and marketing, become increasingly relevant.
Publicity of the biobank is important to bring new users and
increase utilization of collections in storage. In turn, the use
of the specimens builds a ''user history,'' and shows the
value of the collections and the biobank to the organization.
Several of the biobanks are establishing websites for their
operations, although it is unclear if the main driver of these
sites is an organizational requirement, providing data to
existing users or to market to new users. It would be interesting
to further analyze the types of data provided and uses
of biobank websites across our global community. Websites
can be a key factor in discoverability of biobanks and also
offer one avenue to provide updates on use of samples to
patients and volunteers; these can be a key factor in supporting
both financial and social sustainability. Some of the
marketing of biobank collections and services is being done
by social media, although it is in its infancy, per the survey
results. A future analysis of a variety of biobank websites
may yield some interesting clues toward successful best
practices in biobank marketing.
Biobankers around the world are worried about long-term
continuity of their quality specimen collections and sustainability
of their operations. Professionalizing the activities
within a business plan is a critical way to analyze the operational
goals, costs, stakeholders, management processes,
and revenue streams to work toward financial, social, and
operational sustainability. Business planning for biobanking
organizations is beginning to build momentum across the
world and across a variety of types and sizes of biobanks.
While we feel that business planning is at the core of
professionalism of biobanking, currently, it is not yet at the
point where it has become a mandatory activity. Our survey
provided some insights into the status and some aspects of
business planning and stakeholder engagement in biobanking;
however, understanding all of the drivers underlying the
choices taken by the biobanks in their business planning and
stakeholder engagement will require additional research.
In this article, we have focused on the primary goals of
the survey, although in the future there may be opportunities
to conduct further analyses for ancillary questions from the
initial data set, combined with additional sources, as noted.
A companion paper discusses the metrics being established
within reported biobank business plans and further expands
on global utilization rates.
Acknowledgments
We are indebted to our colleagues, Jeanne-He´le`ne Di
Donate and the Club 3C-R, France; Johanna Dungl, Austria/
BBMRI-ERIC; Eoin Gaffney, Ireland; Catherine Kennedy,
Australia; Manuel Morente, Spain; Phil Quinlan, United
Kingdom; Peter Riegman, the Netherlands; Roman Siddiqui,
Germany; Peter Watson, Canada; Andy Zaayenga, US/
ISBER Weekly News Digest; and Xuexun Zhou, China,
who took the effort to translate the English survey to their
own native languages and/or for the promotion of the survey
in the multiple campaigns that were launched across the
world.
Disclaimer
The authors do not have any institutional or commercial
affiliations that might pose a conflict of interest regarding
the publication of this article.
This research was conducted after review and exemption
of the NCI Special Studies Institutional Review Board.
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