The phenomenon of RNA interference (RNAi) has rapidly evolved into a powerful technique to silence gene expression in eukaryotic cells. From an evolutionary perspective, RNAi helps protect cells from viruses and transposable genetic elements in addition to carrying out more routine cellular tasks essential to development and growth. Much of the technique's popularity is because it allows researchers to study the molecular effects of modulating expression at the level of individual genes. This amazing degree of precision can now be accomplished without the tedious and time-consuming efforts previously dedicated to the construction of single gene knock-outs or dominant negative expressing cell lines. The diversity of its applications has quickly made RNAi an indispensable tool for both academic and industrial scientists interested in gene function characterization, signaling pathway analysis and target validation. To ensure the continued adoption of RNAi approaches in the laboratory, The Market for RNA Interference Products: Challenges and Opportunities provides life science suppliers with insights into the types of products and services required to support this research. Looking at the entire market potential, this report not only reflects the experiences and opinions of 520 scientists who currently use small interfering RNA (siRNA) but also over 360 scientists who plan to use siRNA within the next year. It provides an in-depth look at RNAi experimental design, including model systems, siRNA duplex design, transfection techniques as well as current and future levels of throughput. This report also closely examines pre-designed, validated and library siRNA duplexes, chemically synthesized custom siRNAs and transfection reagents from the customer's perspective. It determines their level of satisfaction with various attributes for each type of product and the perceived value given the prices paid. Additionally, this report details the competitive dynamics and opportunities in this exciting segment of the life science market. Respondents reveal the supplier attributes that are of greatest importance, and detail areas where suppliers perform above or below expectations. For the leading RNAi suppliers, this analysis goes a step further by assessing less tangible, but critically important, elements of customer value including attitudinal measurements such as overall customer experience, intent to re-purchase and willingness to recommend as well as behavioral measurements such as frequency of purchases and customer retention. By using this report to understand the preferences, needs and expectations of researchers, life science suppliers will be able to make refinements to existing tools as well as to design new tools that support this technology. A combination of enhancements and innovations will extend the use of RNAi into additional laboratories and toward novel applications The Market for RNA Interference Products contains over 60 charts and/or tables and more than 25 cross-tabulations for the 35 survey questions. After Question 1, the respondents were directed to a subset of questions in the survey that best reflected their experience with siRNA. The 520 respondents who currently employ siRNA in their research completed all relevant questions, while 368 respondents who plan to use siRNA only answered Questions 2, 3, 34 and 35. Below is a glimpse of the key findings derived from just a few of the survey questions: • The primary research objective for most RNAi experiments is to assign gene function-cited by 40% of respondents. (Question 2) • Nearly half of RNAi researchers use Web-based tools from commercial suppliers-most frequently Ambion-to design the siRNA duplexes used in their labs. (Question 4) • On a 7-point scale, where 7=very satisfied and 1=very dissatisfied, researchers averaged a 4.74 in their satisfaction with the number of duplexes needed to evaluate each target molecule they want to inhibit. (Question 9) • Of the 51% of respondents that expect the number of RNAi experiments conducted in their lab to increase over the next year, more than half expect an increase of 50% or more. (Question 12) • Ambion, Dharmacon, Invitrogen and Qiagen were most frequently cited as suppliers of RNAi products used in the past 12 months (Question 24) • Scientists tend to have extremely high expectations (a 7 on a 7-point scale) of their RNAi supplier's product delivery and quality control with relatively lower expectations of sales support and online ordering. (Question 26) (electronic copy includes 1 print copy)
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