Laboratory coordinator Samuel Bosma of the Synthetic Organic Chemistry research group was suddenly pulled aside last summer. ‘One of our technicians pointed me to an auction site, which offered various items of laboratory equipment that were of interest to us,’ he reflects. The equipment turned out to be from Lead Pharma Medicine, an Oss-based pharmaceutical company that had filed for bankruptcy. ‘That company focused on small molecule therapies for patients with cancer or autoimmune diseases and used similar laboratory techniques to ours for synthesising small molecules,’ Samuel explains. ‘Hence our immediate interest.’
This equipment included a FACS device for sorting cells, an H-Cube machine (hydrogenation reactor), a lot of glassware, and various tools. ‘Those would be very useful to us, but we couldn’t afford to buy them new,’ says Samuel. ‘Our technician had seen that the bids were low, so we couldn’t ignore the opportunity. I then asked our professor what a reasonable budget would be. Based on that, we drew up a priority list and started bidding.’
Leap of faith
With this approach, Samuel and his colleagues deviated from the usual procurement procedure within the University. ‘Normally, the procurement process is initiated through the Purchasing Department. But now we first started bidding and then asked Purchasing to create a supplier in the system, which was needed to pay the invoice. So that was different than usual, it was a leap of faith.’
However, the colleagues at Procurement responded cooperatively. ‘They immediately wanted to help us, although they first had to figure out how paying through an auction worked. The difference lies mainly in payment terms. The equipment of the bankrupt Lead Pharma Medicine was listed on online auction platform Troostwijk, which specialises in selling business assets, machinery, inventories and goods originating from bankruptcies, business closures, and surplus business inventories. Head of Purchasing Pim Zeldenrijk ended up making payment arrangements with Troostwijk for us as an exception.’
Double win
In addition to the financial aspects, Samuel and his colleagues also faced another challenge. ‘Normally, purchased materials are delivered to us, but now we had to go to the bankrupt company to disconnect and collect them ourselves. It was a lot of work, but we also learned a lot. The large appliances were brought over with Troostwijk's removal service, the smaller ones we transported ourselves using cars.’
Despite the hard work, Samuel says the purchase through the auction paid off handsomely. ‘We took over €20,000 worth of equipment that was estimated to cost at least €200,000 new. This is in line with our University's policy: saving costs while being sustainable by giving equipment a second life. So it's a double win.’
The Purchasing Department emphasizes that this example is specific to this situation and does not mean that other departments can purchase second-hand products on their own. When deviating from the standard purchasing procedure, it remains important to maintain good coordination with both the Purchasing department and the Accounts Payable department, so that the requisition is correctly approved and the invoice can be paid on time. Looking back, Samuel says he learned a lot from the purchase. ‘When the equipment arrived in our laboratory in early October, our researchers felt like children in a sweet shop. It was great to see their enthusiasm. In my role as laboratory coordinator, I’m like a spider in the web and regularly come up against obstacles in our large organisation, because based on our policies and rules, some things don't seem possible. But this process shows that if you have a good idea that’s out of the box, it pays off to give it a try. Because sometimes more is possible than you might think.’