Why are qPCR reagents so expensive and is there a cheaper option?

[Duncan Clark]

Historians believe that in newspost 
<mailman.639.1203015907.2451.methods from net.bio.net> on Wed, 13 Feb 2008, 
John Cumbers <johncumbers from gmail.com> penned the following literary 
masterpiece:
>what is it about the reagents that make them cost so much (e.g
>bio-rad, itaq SYBR supermix + ROX) it costs about $100 per 96 well plate.
>Is it because the reagents are patented still?  Can I make my own?

Patent on antibody so royalty payable. If chemically modified enzyme, 
patent on that so again royalty payable
Patent on SYBR so royalty payable
Patent(s) on qPCR so royalty payable, both on hardware hence the 
instrument price, and reagents.

Basically royalty stacking is a big part of the problem, a few percent 
for each bit adds up to quite a total. I doubt it is far short of 
20-30%.

It also doesn't help that there are very very few alternatives to SYBR.

Naturally you can make up your own mixes and over the years I've seen 
quite a few recipes published. Google should find them.

Duncan
-- 
I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing noise they make as
they go flying by.

Duncan Clark
GeneSys Ltd.