Dear Wiscoy Forum Members:

I want to respond to the concerns I have recently read about InGen. All of the concerns and frustrations are well founded (with the exception of our producing invalid results) and I certainly understand. I’m not here to offer excuses. Rather to be completely upfront with all of you who have outstanding tests with us and to try to give you some insight into what seems to be our never ending nagging lab problems. First, I know that the bottom line with each of you is to get the product for which you paid for. You want the results and you need the results. Now! The reason for the delays are unimportant. Particularly since InGen seems to have unending reasons for delays. And believe me, I want nothing more than to get on this forum and crow about how well our system is working, not offer excuses for our turnaround time delays. But here is our current problem: when Texas A&M abruptly terminated our DNA extraction processing contract late last summer ( an issue related to InGen’s lawsuit with OptiGen), it caused us immediate logistical problems due to 1) A&M’s refusal to process about 750 samples they had been holding but not processing and 2) although we were working on a solution prior to the termination with another extraction lab, DNA Laboratories International in Deerfield Beach, FL, the A&M termination came before we could properly get this lab on-line and test their extractions. Now the extraction process is not that technical. But it is tedious. This is where the DNA material on the buccal swabs is rendered down to the DNA extraction fluid that is then sent to our lab in Freeport for the actual test processing. The problem here is that DLI uses a different extraction process from the silica bead extraction method used by A&M. Although we were aware of this before hand, we did not have the sufficient time to test this and get the bugs worked out. So it took us about 6 weeks to get the kinks out. Now none of this caused any processing errors. Anyone who has received a result over the last month or so has received good results that we have triple checked for accuracy. There were many tests we did reject though because they did not process properly. But all released results have been checked for accuracy by our PhD and we are completely confident in these results.
We seem to have these problems behind us and are processing results this week. Those of you who are waiting on results sent in August & September should be getting an email from us this week alerting you that the results are now available on-line in your customer portal. And barring any other problems, we should be completely caught up in a couple of weeks.

To address a couple of other issues, I do admit that our phone support is not great. Please understand that we have a small staff and taking & retuning phone calls is very time consuming. We just do not have the personnel resources to answer every call. However, we do work well with emails and will call back within 24 hours if needed. We also try to answer all emails. But some people email us every day with the same question “Where are my results?” A very valid question but one we can only answer in so many ways. Sherrill Williams, our customer service manager, does her best to answer each email as soon as possible. But we literally get 100’s per day. Once we get the above mentioned turn around issues finally fixed and our sales volume increases accordingly, we will have the resources to expand our customer service department.

Another issue I have read here is some allegation that our test results are compromised. At this moment, we are only aware of one complaint where a poodle owner alleges that we tested her dog as Negative for PRCD and that this dog has thrown a Carrier puppy. This allegation was sent to us by a third party from a post on a poodle forum and we are investigating. If anyone has any conflicting results for a dog tested by InGen from another test by a competing lab, please bring it to our attention. We VERY much want to investigate these allegations. But sometimes anonymous forum postings are presented as fact and we have no way of responding. We are very confident in our products, lab and processing procedures. The simple fact is – if you have properly trained technicians, the right equipment & consumable chemicals and uncontaminated DNA extractions for the species of animal being tested, either you get a successful test or an undetermined result. A computer makes the call and produces a graph for human analysis to back up the result. I am not saying it is impossible for there to be an error but given what I just listed off, it’s unlikely.

I know this is long winded but I’m on a roll. For those that are following our lawsuit with OptiGen, there was a decision in August in the 3rd Federal Circuit Court of Appeals on an unrelated matter that basically blows Optigen’s case against InGen out of the water. For those of you interested visit http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions/07-1296.pdf and go to page 33 of the .pdf.
Although this case has not yet been dismissed, we are extremely confident, given the en banc decision in the above mentioned case, that InGen will soon get a summary judgment and at least the InGen portion of the case, which is the most important, will be dismissed. This means that InGen will be allowed to operate without any encumbrances. This would not have been possible without the support of our customers. I know many of you are not happy with us at the moment due to our turn around issues. But without you, we would not have been able to survive the withering attack by OptiGen and continued in business. You are the reason we are still here and you are the reason that the cost of genetic testing is coming down.

Please let me know if I can answer any questions about what we are doing and where we are going. Thank you for bearing with me on this long post and for bearing with InGen during the last couple of months. Your support will not be in vain and once we are sailing in smooth waters again, it will be your support that got us over this hump.

Thank you!!!

Rick Dobbins, GM
International Genetics, Inc
rick@ingen.bs

thank you for taking the time to respond.

Thank your Rick for your post. I was told by your company the coat color test "should" be back in October. Is this still true?

BTTT

Thank you, Rick.

what the heck is with the BTTT? Is this supposed to mean something? I saw it on another thread and it makes no sense.

I think it means "back to the top"? In other words, bumping an old post up back to the top. In this case because someone had asked about Ingen and this post had been placed a few days ago.

Well, it's been 10 days and still nothing from Ingen........

Nice letter or post from Rick but nothing happens.

My thoughts exactly -- nice of Rick to respond here but bottom line remains the same -- No results yet for me either.

That makes sense. Thanks.