Automation is an area where life scientists often see opportunities for innovation; doing the same technique day in and day out unsurprisingly brings to mind ways to ease and speed the process. If you’ve invented an automated tool, colleagues in other labs could very likely benefit from your ingenuity. But if you’ve ever dreamt of seeing your invention in a product catalog, you’d best keep in mind that taking your tool to market is rarely simple.
Indeed, developing a good tool and a good product can seem like an uphill battle. Some areas of lab automation are dominated by big companies; amid that kind of competition, newcomers may need to drop their price. To create and sell a product, you’ll also probably have to stretch outside your scientific comfort zone. Commercializing a product is a multi-step process, from the legwork of tuning and tweaking a complex prototype of moving parts, ...
