Invitrogen vs other companies - (Jun/30/2009 )
hey all,
I've had a few pcr problems in recent months and people kept telling me to try other companies reagents. Most people told me to go to invitrogen as they are the best, and I do agree in lots of ways they are. I was told that for such things as sybr green they have the rights to it and sell it on to other firms which then modify it, so getting it straight from the source is best!?
I have just compared standard hot start taq from invitrogen and another company and the other has a much brighter product (all under same conditions).
I just wondered what people thought about different types of companies. I know alot of teh time i look for whats cheapest because we're pretty poor, but when everything went wrong i decided molecular work is too finicky to mess with so thought i'd go to the best, but now i'm not so sure, I guess its personal preference?
any thoughts on this?
cheers
KT 
There can be quite a bit of difference between companies in terms of activity of their reagents, but you also should consider whether you need the specific activity for your experiments, how quickly they can get stuff to you, and of course, price.
Personally I find Invitrogen to be OK, but in recent years they have become a very large company, with lots of smaller companies under their wing. This has led to them being much slower in delivery, more likely to stuff it up, and less stuff stocked locally, as well as higher prices for some things. Their website is also pretty bad (it used to be good about 3-5 years ago), it is hard to find specific things, even when you know they stock it, and there can be issues finding the product information sheets etc. Typically my lab buys stuff from Invitrogen if it is cheaper than elsewhere, or they make the best of a particular product (e.g. their Superscript III is the best RTase in my hands, Alexafluor dyes are the best too).
bob1 on Jul 1 2009, 01:32 AM said:
Personally I find Invitrogen to be OK, but in recent years they have become a very large company, with lots of smaller companies under their wing. This has led to them being much slower in delivery, more likely to stuff it up, and less stuff stocked locally, as well as higher prices for some things. Their website is also pretty bad (it used to be good about 3-5 years ago), it is hard to find specific things, even when you know they stock it, and there can be issues finding the product information sheets etc. Typically my lab buys stuff from Invitrogen if it is cheaper than elsewhere, or they make the best of a particular product (e.g. their Superscript III is the best RTase in my hands, Alexafluor dyes are the best too).
Thanks Bob1,
Its great to get a different opinion, and adding to that, after posting this I went to order my primers and their network had blipped out and lost all my favourites and saved lists etc! they did have a saved copy which took me half a day to reinstall to my account etc and is now in a complete mess!! very annoying! and really no point to this except to rant!
I mainly use them for cell culture and primers, however recently had gone to them for the pcr stuff but in retrospect I think i'll stick to where i was as its cheaper and my experiments dont require anything too specific for this!Thanks again, any more opinions welcome too, good to see what people think of different companies and general consensus on the best! The taq which gave me such an amazing result was actually rovalab or vhbio, give them a wee promotion as i was pretty impressed!
KT
guess its personal preference 
Ussually don't like "big" companies because in general there support suck
phillip
Yep same here. I used to buy from Invitrogen all the time, but in the past year or two they have become pretty lax. I've been shipped bum reagents (actually had a pcr kit with unlabeled tubes, but containing enzyme). I've had some issues with different lots of their products which they tried to resolve by sending me kits from the same lot 3 times *boggle*. Finally managed to track down a manager and they sent me a kit from a new lot and everything was fine. The same thing has happened to me with millipore who had recently acquired guava/upstate and a few other companies. Sure its convenient to have a one stop shop but not when they end up being more of a headache than they're worth ><
We have been using a lot of Invitrogen products for a long time-- we have a stocked Invitrogen supply center on-site -- and have had very few problems with their stuff. When the rare problem does crop up, we've had no difficulty getting it resolved.