[koeng]

Clonal DNA synthesis has increased in price over the past 6 years (even when accounting for inflation). On that metric, we’re actually regressing in our ability to modify the natural world. It’s even worse than stagnation.

Or even look at lab robotics - in 2015, you were able to buy a new opentrons for $2500. Now it’s about $10,000 - the only way to rival the old pricing is to scrounge around used sales.

Enzyme prices haven’t dropped in basically forever. Addgene increased plasmid prices a little bit ago.

I feel like computer hackers can’t even imagine how bad it is over here

[abhishaike]

this is super interesting, had no idea this was happening! i assumed things were tending towards cheaper given sequencing prices were dropping, why are things rising elsewhere?

[koeng]

For synthesis, it’s mainly because there is a monopoly and the challenge (DNA assembly) is super boring in comparison to sexy things like DNA synthesis.

For robotics, it’s because Opentrons started scaling and needed to make more $$$ rather than staying small (fair to them, SoftBank dollars are attractive)

Generally speaking, biology is hard and uncertain, so the market isn’t as competitive as you’d imagine. Synthesis prices stagnated a little bit for a while in comparison to where they could be because Illumina didn’t have competition