Lab Supply Purchasing for Pharma and Biotech

Table of Contents

A missing reagent, unclear approval, or unexpected backorder can interrupt a planned experiment. A clear purchasing process helps researchers get the right supplies at the right time while giving the teams supporting them the information they need.

This guide covers the steps, responsibilities, and common delays in lab supply purchasing, as well as practical ways to improve the process.

What is lab supply purchasing?

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Lab supply purchasing is the process of selecting, requesting, ordering, and receiving the reagents, consumables, equipment, and other supplies a laboratory needs. It also connects order and receiving records to invoicing and payment.

Purchasing fulfills a specific need, while broader life sciences procurement strategy sets supplier relationships, contracts, sourcing priorities, and purchasing policies. The two work together: procurement establishes the arrangements, and purchasing uses them to obtain supplies for research.

What makes lab supply purchasing different?

Lab purchases must meet scientific requirements as well as price and delivery needs. A particular manufacturer, catalog number, concentration, grade, or formulation may be essential to an experiment. A similar product is not automatically an acceptable substitute.

Availability matters, too. A lower price offers little benefit if the material arrives after the experiment is scheduled. Storage conditions, shipping requirements, remaining shelf life, and receiving arrangements can all affect the decision.

Documentation and supplier checks depend on the research setting and intended use. Exploratory research, regulated studies, and manufacturing may follow different procedures. Teams should collect product documentation, lot information, and supplier approvals where their organization's procedures require them.

A purchasing platform can help maintain records and route requests, but the organization still needs to define which checks apply.

How does lab supply purchasing work?

Lab supply purchasing follows eight steps: define the need, check inventory, compare options, submit a request, obtain approval, place the order, receive the supplies, and reconcile the invoice. Systems and responsibilities vary, but the product requirements and required delivery date should stay attached to the purchase throughout.

Define the scientific requirements

Record the product, manufacturer and catalog number where known, quantity, pack size, and required delivery date. Include any specs that must be preserved, such as grade or concentration. State whether an alternative is acceptable and who can assess it. This helps prevent a product substitution from becoming an unintended and unwelcome change to the experimental method.
Check inventory and outstanding orders

Check whether suitable stock is available, reserved for another project, or already on order. Confirm its location, quantity, expiry date, and storage history where relevant. Give this check a clear owner. Reliable lab supply management helps teams avoid duplicate orders and identify shortages before supplies run out.

WHO's purchasing and inventory guidance for clinical laboratories emphasizes balancing reagent availability with expiry dates and avoiding overstocking.
Compare suitable products and suppliers

Check the exact item, pack size, price, shipping charges, availability, expected delivery date, and purchasing terms. Request a quote if key information is missing. Buying the same manufacturer's product from another supplier is different from switching products. For example, if an assay kit is backordered, another distributor may carry the same catalog number. A different kit would need a separate assessment of scientific suitability.
Submit a complete purchasing request

Include the selected item, supplier or quote, quantity, price, delivery location, cost center or project code, and required delivery date. Attach any information needed for review. The next person should be able to act on the request without asking the scientist to explain the purchase again by email.
Route the request for approval

Send the request through the required budget, supplier, and purchasing checks. Some purchases may also need scientific or quality review. Make the approver and request status visible. Define who handles urgent requests and who covers an absent approver, so the lab knows where to follow up.
Place the order and check confirmation

Once approved, the designated buyer places the order through the agreed purchasing channel. Check the supplier's confirmation against the request, including the item, quantity, price, shipping details, and estimated delivery date. An approved request is not a confirmed supplier order. Researchers need to see which stage the purchase has reached before planning work around its arrival.
Track, receive, and inspect the supplies

Monitor delivery updates and tell the affected lab about backorders or split shipments. On arrival, check the shipment against the order and follow the applicable receiving and storage procedures. Record missing, damaged, or incorrect items and assign someone to resolve them. Notify the requester when the supplies are available for use.
Reconcile the invoice and update records

Share receiving information with finance or accounts payable so the invoice can be checked against the order and receipt. Resolve discrepancies, then update inventory and purchasing records as needed.

For more detail on coordinating orders across suppliers, see our guide to ordering lab supplies online

Who manages lab supply purchasing?

Scientists, Research Operations, procurement, and finance share responsibility for lab supply purchasing. Scientists define what the experiment needs; the supporting teams coordinate supplies, supplier arrangements, approvals, and payment. In smaller labs, one person may cover several roles.

Team	Main responsibility
Scientists and researchers	Define product requirements, assess scientific suitability, and review proposed alternatives.
Research Operations and lab managers	Coordinate requests, inventory, receiving, and issues affecting laboratory work.
Procurement and sourcing	Manage suppliers, purchasing channels, commercial terms, onboarding, and purchasing policies.
Finance and accounts payable	Manage financial coding, invoice reconciliation, payment, and financial records.

Quality, safety, legal, and IT teams may participate when their expertise is needed. Suppliers provide product information, confirm fulfillment, and help resolve order problems.

Research Operations teams connect these responsibilities to scientists' daily needs. By making ownership explicit for approvals, backorders, and receiving discrepancies, researchers don't have to chase every step.

What causes delays in lab supply purchasing?

Delays can arise from missing product information, new supplier setup, incomplete requests, approval backlogs, backorders, or receiving discrepancies. Identify the stage causing the delay before changing the process.

Where the purchase stalls	What to check
Product search	Are specifications, pack sizes, and delivery information available and easy to compare?
New supplier requests	Is there a clear owner, request route, and list of required information?
Approvals	Is the request complete, correctly routed, and covered if an approver is away?
Ordering and delivery	Can the lab see whether an item is requested, approved, ordered, backordered, or received?
Receiving and invoicing	Are partial deliveries and discrepancies recorded and shared with the responsible team?

An approval backlog and a supplier backorder require different responses. Use our lab purchasing workflow diagnostic checklist to assess gaps in your current process.

How can labs improve purchasing?

Improve lab supply purchasing by capturing complete requests, keeping supplier access clear, matching approvals to the purchase, and assigning owners to exceptions. Start with the recurring problems your team encounters.

Make requests easier to complete

Keep product specifications, financial details, and delivery needs in one request. Save commonly ordered items and repeat-order information, with room to change quantities or dates. Ask scientists for the details only they can provide. Use existing records for information already held by procurement or finance.

Keep access to specialized suppliers

Make preferred suppliers easy to find, and provide a clear exception route when they cannot meet the scientific requirement. Researchers should know how to request a specialized product without building a separate buying process. Supplier orchestration in pharmaceutical R&D explains how supplier access, product information, purchasing rules, and workflows can be coordinated across a diverse network.

Match approvals to the purchase

Define approval routes, required checks, and coverage with procurement and finance. Show the requirements before a request is submitted. A routine reorder and a first-time equipment purchase may need different reviews. Follow the organization's policies and retain the checks relevant to each purchase. Our guide to streamlining lab purchasing workflows in pharma covers request intake and the handoff to purchasing systems in more detail.

Give exceptions a clear owner

Decide who contacts the supplier, updates the researcher, reviews an alternative, and resolves a receiving or invoice discrepancy. Keep updates with the request or order so everyone can see the same information. A shared purchasing process should also accommodate local receiving arrangements and the needs of different research teams.

How can technology support lab purchasing?

A lab purchasing platform can bring product search, supplier comparisons, requests, and order tracking into a shared workflow. Researchers need exact product information and delivery updates. Procurement and finance need approval, order, receipt, and invoice records.

Shared lists and order history can make repeat purchases easier. A clear route for specialized suppliers helps teams handle products outside the usual catalog.

Connections to enterprise resource planning (ERP) and procure-to-pay (P2P) systems can reduce repeated data entry. When evaluating lab ERP and P2P integrations, confirm which information passes between systems and which steps remain manual.

Our guide to choosing a lab supply marketplace covers detailed selection criteria.

How do you measure lab purchasing performance?

Track request-to-order time, delivery against the required date, purchasing-related experiment delays, and the amount of correction or follow-up needed. Together, these measures show how the process performs and where it affects research.

Measure	What to record
Request-to-order time	Time from a complete request to a placed order; measure approval time separately.
Delivery against the required date	Whether supplies arrived when the lab needed them and against the supplier's confirmed date.
Purchasing-related experiment delays	Which purchasing issues affected planned work and where the problems began.
Rework and follow-up	Requests needing correction, order-status inquiries, and invoice discrepancies.

Use consistent start and end points. For example, APQC's purchase-order cycle-time definition measures the time between receiving a purchase requisition line item and sending the purchase order to the supplier. If you compare results with external benchmarks, check that the measurement boundaries match.

Review results by site or workflow stage so an overall average does not hide a recurring problem.

How does ZAGENO support lab supply purchasing?

ZAGENO's lab supply marketplace connects product search, supplier comparisons, and multi-supplier ordering in one environment. Researchers can compare product information and pricing, build orders, and reuse order history and shared lists.

Order tracking and backorder notifications help labs follow purchases after ordering. Configurable approval workflows, consolidated billing options, and purchasing-system integrations connect the work of scientists, procurement, and finance.

Use your lab's products and purchasing requirements to assess the fit. A demonstration can show how the proposed setup handles your supplier needs, approval routes, and system connections.

Frequently asked questions about lab supply purchasing

What if a required product is not in the purchasing catalog?

Submit a non-catalog request or quote through your organization's designated route. Include the manufacturer, catalog number, specifications, quantity, required delivery date, and any supplier quote. The purchasing team can determine whether an existing channel can supply it or whether a new supplier needs onboarding.

Should labs buy supplies in bulk?

Bulk buying may suit products with predictable demand, sufficient shelf life, and enough storage capacity. Compare the total cost with the quantity the lab expects to use before expiry. Smaller orders may be more suitable when demand is uncertain or protocols are changing.

How should an urgent lab supply order be handled?

Use the organization's urgent purchasing route. State the required delivery date and explain which planned work is affected. Confirm availability and shipping arrangements. If a different product is proposed, obtain the appropriate scientific review before ordering it.

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Spend less time coordinating lab purchases

Keep product requirements, delivery needs, and order information connected from the first request through receiving. A clear process helps scientists obtain supplies and gives the teams supporting them fewer details to chase.

See how ZAGENO can support product discovery, ordering, and purchasing coordination for your research teams.

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Lab Supply Purchasing for Pharma and Biotech: A Practical Guide

What is lab supply purchasing?

What makes lab supply purchasing different?

How does lab supply purchasing work?

Define the scientific requirements

Check inventory and outstanding orders

Compare suitable products and suppliers

Submit a complete purchasing request

Route the request for approval

Place the order and check confirmation

Track, receive, and inspect the supplies

Reconcile the invoice and update records