Brokerage explainer
Ordering through a sourcing intermediary
Wetware World owns no laboratory and manufactures nothing. This page states the counterparty, the fee structures, the handling of your specification, and the cases the service does not cover.
Roles
What we are
A sourcing intermediary. We take a written specification, circulate it to laboratories capable of the work, normalise the responses, and place an order.
Who makes the goods
A third-party laboratory, in every case. Each catalogue entry names the candidate suppliers or states that supplier selection is done by RFQ.
Who you contract with
Us, when we place the order and carry the margin. The supplier, when the engagement is structured as a flat brokerage fee. The quotation says which, before you accept it.
Who issues the paperwork
The manufacturing laboratory issues the certificate of analysis. We specify which certificates travel with the shipment and confirm they arrive with it.
Sequence
Eleven steps. Each names the acting party and the output.
- 01
You
You send a specification
A form, an email, a protocol PDF, or a paragraph from a grant. Four fields are required for a quote: the component, the format and geometry, the functional acceptance criterion, and the quality evidence that must travel with the shipment. Fields left open are assumed by the supplier.
Output
A written request, held by us with a reference number.
- 02
Wetware World
We acknowledge it in writing
Within one business day. The acknowledgement restates the request in our words. You correct it before anything is circulated.
Output
A restated specification you can approve or amend.
- 03
Wetware World
We tell you whether it exists
Before any supplier is contacted we state whether this is a catalogue purchase, an integration of parts that are individually available, or something no supplier sells. For engineered contractile muscle, no surveyed supplier lists a force-specified, mechanically anchored muscle construct as a catalogue item; it can only be built as a programme.
Output
A feasibility statement, and the route we propose.
- 04
Wetware World
We normalise your specification into a request suppliers can price
Laboratories quote in different units: per vial, per million cells, per tissue, per week of labour. We restate your requirement in each supplier’s own terms, state the acceptance criterion and the QC scope, and issue the same scope to every supplier.
Output
One request for quotation per supplier, all describing the same job.
- 05
Wetware World
We circulate it, anonymised unless you say otherwise
Suppliers receive the technical content. They do not receive your name, institution, funder, or application, unless you have told us in writing that they may. The quote pack names every supplier approached.
Output
A named list of approached suppliers, and who declined.
- 06
Supplier
Suppliers quote, and some do not
A supplier may quote, decline, or propose a different scope. Declines and non-responses are reported as part of the result.
Output
Raw quotes, in whatever form each supplier issues them.
- 07
Wetware World
We normalise what comes back
Every quote is restated onto one basis: the same unit, quantity, delivery format, QC scope, incoterm-equivalent treatment of freight and cold chain, and a lead time counted from the same start event. Where a supplier has excluded something another included, such as mould tooling, force testing or a dry shipper, the exclusion is shown as a separate line.
Output
A comparison table plus the original supplier documents, unedited.
- 08
You
You decide
There is no obligation and no fee for receiving quotes. The quotes are yours to keep. You may contract with a supplier directly.
Output
Your decision, against comparable numbers.
- 09
Wetware World and supplier
We place the order and hold the schedule
We issue the purchase order, agree the acceptance criteria in writing with the supplier before work starts, and track the schedule. Reconstructed tissue ships against a fixed weekly production cadence. Cryogenic shipments are booked against courier windows.
Output
A confirmed order with a written acceptance criterion.
- 10
Supplier
The supplier manufactures and ships
Manufacture, culture, testing and packing are the supplier’s work. The document set is fixed at order time: certificate of analysis, mycoplasma, identity, sterility, viability, and a functional trace where specified. Documents not on the order do not ship.
Output
Physical goods, plus the quality file agreed at order.
- 11
Wetware World
Acceptance or failure
If delivered material misses the written acceptance criterion, we report it and pass on the supplier’s proposed remedy with our assessment of it. A supplier that fails twice on the same criterion receives no further requests, and the reason is recorded.
Output
An accepted batch, a remedy, or a recorded failure.
Responsibilities
| Task | What Wetware World does | What the supplier does | What you do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Writing the specification and the acceptance criterion | Restate it, question it, put it in supplier terms | Nothing, they receive it | Own it. You define what makes a batch unusable |
| Deciding whether it is buildable at all | Answer this before circulating, using the published survey | Confirm or refuse against their own capability | Decide whether the proposed route is acceptable |
| Selecting which laboratories are asked | Select and name them; publish the basis for inclusion | Choose whether to quote | Veto any supplier, for any reason, without explaining |
| Producing the cells, tissue, device or test | None. We hold no laboratory and no production | All of it. Every physical step is theirs | Nothing, unless you are supplying your own cells |
| Setting the price | Add a disclosed margin or a flat fee | Set the underlying price independently | Accept or reject it |
| Quality testing and certification | Specify which documents must travel; commission third-party QC where you want it independent | Run the tests and issue the certificates | Define what counts as a pass |
| Cold chain, permits and customs paperwork | Book it, and state where a permit gates the date | Pack to the validated shipping configuration | Hold the import permits your institution requires |
| Receiving inspection | Pursue the remedy and assess it | Remedy a batch that misses the written criterion | Inspect on arrival and report immediately |
Liability follows this table. Where Wetware World holds the contract, it carries the commercial obligation to you and pursues the supplier. Where the supplier contracts with you directly, the Wetware World obligation is the sourcing work, not the batch.
Fees
Two structures. The applicable structure and amount are printed on the quotation.
Structure A · Margin
Margin on resale
We place the purchase order with the supplier and invoice you. The margin appears as its own line on the quotation with the supplier price beside it. Wetware World holds the commercial relationship, the schedule and the remedy when a batch fails.
Structure B · Brokerage fee
Flat fee, direct supplier contract
You hold the supplier relationship. The supplier invoices you and Wetware World invoices a flat fee for the sourcing and normalisation work. The fee is agreed before circulation.
| Rule | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| The margin is visible | The supplier price and the Wetware World share are shown separately. Where the supplier price is commercially confidential, the quotation states that. |
| No payment for placement | Suppliers do not pay to appear in the catalogue, to rank higher, or to be recommended. A supplier appears because the work fits their capability. |
| No fee for a quote | Circulating your specification and returning comparable quotes costs nothing, including when you decide not to buy. |
| Published prices stay published | Where a supplier lists a public price, it is shown on the catalogue entry with its source and capture date. |
| Price basis is stated | Every quote states what is included, what is excluded, freight, cold chain, duties, permits, material transfer agreement fees, taxes, and how long the number is valid. |
Handling of your specification
| Default circulation | Anonymised. Suppliers receive the technical requirement without your name, your institution, your funder or your stated application. |
|---|---|
| Named circulation | Only when you tick the box or tell us in writing. |
| Who reads it internally | The people working your request. It is not sold, syndicated, used to train a model, or published as market research. |
| What we publish | Nothing about your request. Aggregate findings about supplier capability may inform the catalogue, but never a customer requirement, a quantity, or an application. |
| Supplier confidentiality | Suppliers receive your specification under their own confidentiality terms. A signed agreement can be put in place before circulation on request. |
| Deletion | On request, at any time, including after an order. |
Quote normalisation
Raw supplier quotes rarely share a unit, a quantity, a QC scope or a lead-time start date.
| Dimension | What suppliers do | What we restate it to |
|---|---|---|
| Unit | Per vial, per million cells, per tissue, per insert, per plate, per week of labour. | One unit matching your requirement, with the conversion shown. |
| Quantity basis | Price breaks at different thresholds, minimum order quantities, pack sizes that do not divide evenly. | Your quantity, plus the next price break above and below it. |
| Lead time start | Counted from order, from purchase order receipt, from payment, from cell delivery, or from design sign-off. | Business days from a single named start event, with the gating constraint stated: production cadence, courier window, permit, or cell expansion time. |
| QC scope | One supplier includes identity and sterility; another prices them separately; a third assumes you will test on receipt. | The same document list on every quote, with anything a supplier excluded shown as an added line rather than absorbed. |
| Non-recurring engineering | Tooling, mould design and protocol development are sometimes buried in a unit price, sometimes a separate charge. | Separated. First-article cost and repeat-run cost are shown as two numbers. |
| Freight and cold chain | Excluded, estimated, or included with no detail. | A stated line, with the shipping configuration named, dry ice, dry shipper, or wet ice at 4 °C on the supplier’s ship day. |
| Validity | Undated, or valid for a period nobody mentions. | An explicit expiry date on every line. |
When nothing can be sourced
Reported in writing as a result.
Some requests have no supplier. A survey of roughly thirty organisations found that finished contractile muscle is available from one supplier as a catalogue item, and that none publish a force acceptance criterion for it. In this case you receive the following, at no cost.
- A statement of who was asked and what they said. Named organisations, with declines and non-responses shown.
- The reason it failed. Capability, commercial posture, regulatory restriction, or geometry.
- The nearest available alternative. A different format, a fixed geometry instead of a custom one, or the same job split across two laboratories.
- What it would take. Where the requirement is an integration, which parts exist and which are missing.
- A record. Failed searches inform the catalogue.
Worked example
A 10 mm aligned skeletal muscle construct with loop anchors at both ends and a twitch acceptance of 500 µN cannot be bought from a catalogue anywhere. Every individual requirement, however, is inside demonstrated commercial capability: published validation on a commercial platform reports average twitch forces of 385 to 1156 µN and tetanic forces to 1660 µN.
No supplier sells this construct. The custom part is the mould. The route is an integration across a cell supplier, a microfabrication shop, a casting laboratory and a force-testing house.
Smith et al. 2022, PMC9445471 · Wetware World supply landscape survey, 2026-09-01
Cases this service does not cover
You have a supplier and a price
An intermediary adds cost without function on that line.
You need GMP or clinical-grade material
Everything routed through this site is research use only. Wetware World holds no quality system, no clinical qualification and no regulatory standing. Contract directly with a GMP manufacturer.
You need it in 48 hours
The fastest lines in the catalogue are cryopreserved cells at one to three weeks from order. Living tissue ships against a weekly production cadence.
The item is a small consumable with a published price
Skeletal muscle casting devices are listed publicly at USD 440.00 for a pack covering eight experiments. For a single pack, buy from the vendor.
You have no acceptance criterion
A quote requires a measurable acceptance criterion. If the measurement does not exist, developing it is a separate project and is scoped as one.
You need a price figure for a grant, without a requirement
Use the published price evidence on the catalogue entries. It is dated and sourced.
Send a specification
The catalogue holds 66 sourceable entries, 34 of them against published supplier prices.