Sourcing biospecimens is unlike almost any other research purchase. Getting the right sample requires a level of specificity that a standard catalog form can't always capture—the right tissue type, disease state, donor profile, clinical annotation, etc.—and getting the wrong sample can have a big impact on research results. It's one of the reasons biospecimen ordering has historically been difficult to keep fully inside a procurement workflow, and why getting it right matters.
Today, we're excited to share that we've solved that complexity in a new way, with the launch of supplier configuration punchout, starting with BioIVT.
A quick note if your organization already uses an existing punchout connection between Science Exchange and your ERP or financial system: this is different. That integration routes purchase orders from Science Exchange into your financial systems downstream. Supplier configuration punchout works in the other direction — letting you configure a complex order on a supplier's native platform, then bring it back into Science Exchange to submit through your existing workflow, with all your approvals, compliance controls, and payment infrastructure intact.
Biospecimen ordering is too complex for a standard catalog form — here's how supplier configuration punchout finally closes that gap.BioIVT is one of the world's leading providers of biospecimen solutions and a longtime Science Exchange partner. Their portfolio spans disease state and normal human and animal tissues, cell products, blood and biofluids, and ADME-Tox models. The breadth of their catalog reflects the true complexity of what researchers need; for instance, BioIVT's ASTERAND® Human Tissue Repository alone has procured over one million tissue samples through their worldwide network of more than 425 active donor institutions, and their biobank consistently contains hundreds of thousands of disease-state and normal biospecimens, many accompanied by more than 200 data points.
That depth of selection is exactly what makes a native configuration experience valuable. When a scientist needs a specific disease-state tissue with particular clinical annotation, donor characteristics, and processing specifications, BioIVT's own platform is built to surface and configure that. Now, so is the path from BioIVT back into Science Exchange.
Navigate to BioIVT's storefront on Science Exchange and click Punchout.
You'll move directly into BioIVT's configuration environment, where you can browse their full catalog, access customer-specific pricing, and receive instant quotes. You can also use BioIVT's Inventory Search tool to browse ready-to-ship tissues, biofluids, and cell products. When you're ready, your selections transfer back into Science Exchange as a standard request. Simply add the products to your BioIVT cart, view your cart, and click the continue button to transfer back to Science Exchange.
From there, everything works exactly as it always has. Your request routes through your organization's approval workflows, sits under your existing Science Exchange contract with BioIVT, and flows into your payment and spend tracking alongside the rest of your supplier activity.
You shouldn't have to choose between a supplier's full catalog experience and your organization's compliance controls — now you don't have to.Biospecimen orders are complex to configure, but that complexity shouldn't come at the cost of visibility, compliance, or control. With supplier configuration punchout, it doesn't have to.
You get BioIVT's full configuration experience — the depth of their catalog, their native tooling, their customer-specific pricing — and Science Exchange's full infrastructure around it. Your contract with BioIVT is already in place; no separate legal process required. Your order moves through the same approval workflows as every other request. It appears in your spend dashboards and budget tracking alongside the rest of your R&D activity. And your finance team receives invoices from one known source, through the same process as every other supplier on the platform.
For BioIVT, orders that arrive fully specified from the start mean less back-and-forth, faster fulfillment, and a stronger working relationship with the researchers who depend on them.
This is what it looks like when a supplier's expertise and a platform's infrastructure work together rather than in parallel.
Supplier configuration punchout with BioIVT is live now for all Science Exchange customers with BioIVT in their network. Navigate to BioIVT's storefront, click Punchout, and configure your next order.
Interested in enabling supplier configuration punchout for your organization or learning about upcoming integrations? Contact us.