Leadership Summit Panel
Available On Demand
Join Lab Manager and it's expert panel as they explore strategies for successful lab moves and efficient lab spending processes through common challenges and pitfalls. Expect actionable takeaways for improving lab efficiency and managing resources effectively as we'll discuss:
- Triggers for lab moves along with key lessons learned from past experiences.
- Challenges and solutions to tackle lab supply spend management, such as decentralized purchasing, scalable ordering systems, and strategies for gaining buy-in
- Failures and success on managing spend habits and system options
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Speakers
Joel Basken
Director of Operations
Enveda Biosciences
Nathan Foorman
Life Science Facilities & Operations Consultant
Foorman Facilities Advising
Lindsey Fitzgerald
Senior Account Executive
ZAGENO
Without further ado, let's move into our panel.
Uh, this panel is sponsored by Zaino
and they're gonna be talking about Master Lab moves
and making procurement decisions.
We're very happy to have these panelists with us today.
So we have Joel Baskin, who's the Director
of Operations at N Vita Biosciences, Nathan Foreman,
life Science Facilities
and Operations Consultant at Foreman Facilities Advising.
And this session's gonna be moderated by Lindsay Fitzgerald,
senior Account Executive at zi gm.
Thank you. So,
we're gonna be covering a couple of topics today.
Uh, we want this to be interactive,
so please just raise your hand if you do have a question.
We'll try to get to all of them.
Um, like they said, we're,
we're gonna be covering a couple topics.
So lab moves. What are the pitfalls to avoid?
Um, and with the two individuals here,
what have they experienced personally, um, you know,
throughout their tenure when it comes to lab moves
and what they've learned from it.
Um, and then we'll get into procurement
and how we can make that scalable, especially
with the growth trajectory of biotechs when you're moving
to different locations, when you're expanding,
when you're raising money and growing,
how can you make that scalable?
So without further ado, I'll let Nate kick it off.
Thanks everyone for your time for joining us.
Uh, I'm Nathan Foreman.
I'm a facilities consultant hoping, uh,
helping predominantly life science companies with any range
of their facilities, projects, but mostly finding
and moving into new spaces.
Thanks, Nathan. Uh, I'm Joel.
I'm the Director of Operations at Veta Biosciences,
and my background was in bench science and research, uh,
before making the transitions.
So kind of a circuitous route to operations.
Great. So the first subject we're gonna talk about
is lab move.
So specifically, how do we even start the process?
What are the triggers, um, in
starting the actual steps to get that done?
And also, what can we learn from even mistakes that happen?
Um, and there's no one better I can think of than Nate
to to talk about this.
He's experienced this a lot
with startup biotechs all the way up
to large pharmaceutical companies, whether, you know,
they're just growing organically
or if they've actually gotten bought by, you know,
another large pharmaceutical company. So I'll let you
Take the stage. Thank you, Lindsey.
Uh, yeah.
So I've helped over a dozen companies, uh, relocate
or grow into newer, bigger, better spaces,
sometimes headquarters.
Uh, there's a whole variety of triggers, uh,
that we should be looking out for.
And really, the, the main key to that is,
is keeping an eye out nice and early.
The biggest pitfall that I have seen
with clients in the past is when they, uh,
start looking into the process of expanding
and relocating, uh, a little bit too late.
And it really just pigeonholes them, sends them down paths
that can get expensive, time consuming, uh,
or rushed where mistakes are made.
So those biggest triggers to look out for,
first one is evolving business demands or, uh, timelines.
If you have sudden, uh, pivots in your business activities
and all of a sudden you've got a headcount, uh, surge
that comes up, all
of a sudden you are finding yourself out of space.
And, uh, and that's something that we want to avoid.
So having that, uh, forecasting, meeting
with your leadership team, meeting with the various teams
to, uh, forecast those headcounts is, uh, is a big thing to,
to look out for, uh, other activities,
uh, bringing those in-house.
So if all of a sudden you're talking with CMOs
and the budgets
or the timelines, uh, are way past, uh,
what your intended targets are,
and all of a sudden you wanna bring that activity in-house,
I've had a couple clients say, oh no,
we can make our clinical product better, cheaper,
faster ourselves.
All of a sudden now we're looking at a construction project
to built out A-A-G-M-P pilot facility.
Uh, so things like that, bringing vivarium, uh,
studies in-house folks like Charles River will charge an arm
and a leg to conduct your, your my studies.
And so several clients have said we want
to do vivarium studies ourselves.
That's another building project.
Uh, other triggers can be, uh, market forces.
So if all of a sudden your lease expiration is coming up at
the end of six months and there isn't any ready
to go lab space, uh,
and the current landlord doesn't want you
as a tenant anymore, they want to convert to something else,
or they're selling the building, all
of a sudden your market is dictating your move.
Finally, uh, graduation, whether you like it
or not, when we are kicked out of the nest, either
a company is leaving their academic, uh, their university
or their incubator situation, sometimes that's
of their own volition.
They're ready to build out, uh, their own headquarters
or just like that lease expiration.
They're getting booted out of that incubator to make room
for other fledglings.
Uh, that can be a driving force.
But again, the key is not to find yourself, uh,
behind that timeline.
All of a sudden you're rushed into evaluating spaces
that might not be necessarily suitable.
You're dealing with contractors
who may not intentionally gouge you, uh,
but they may realize, uh, and,
and recognize that your back is against the wall
with a lease expiration.
And so they're not gonna sharpen their pencils
and really, uh, get the best pricing for you
because they know that you don't have
a ton of choice in the matter.
Nathan, I think, I think I'm gonna focus on some mistakes
because I recently did a move.
Um, you know, I, one of the things
that you should do if you're doing a move is
make sure you can plug your equipment in.
Um, you know, we had a building that we redeveloped,
and it was a two year project,
and I hadn't looked at some of the specs for two years.
Um, not that things changed,
but things weren't what I expected.
And so it put a lot of burden on our operations team
to scramble and make sure the
equipment could get plugged in.
You know, these, some of these pieces
of equipment are gonna have exhaust needs
or gas service into the machine needs.
And, uh, yeah, that was a mistake I won't make again.
Um, I think another lesson is it's not just you
and your team and a moving company.
If you have high end pieces of equipment
that you have service contracts on,
you're probably gonna have a warranty that could get voided.
If you don't have them move it, some
of them will gouge you for that.
Um, some will make you use their crate.
Um, and trying to align that schedule with your schedule,
with the moving schedule, that becomes a really
challenging logistical problem.
Um, and so yeah, that's just something to think about ahead
of time and, and really schedule around.
Uh, and then finally, I, I think we did it well,
but a real lesson is just to communicate
with your teams over and over and over.
You know, are you gonna do a phased, um, move?
Are you gonna have a one week shutdown?
Can your team tolerate it?
What is, what is the expectations from you?
Um, you know, and be sure that
what they said is gonna change two weeks before the move.
So just constant communication.
I think it's what you owe the teams
that you're supporting on the science side.
Perfect. And something, you know, in particular
where Sino comes into play, especially when it comes
to lab moves, um, I've, you know, I've worked at Sino
for almost four years now, so I've worked with lots
of different biotech companies, especially biotech companies
that are making that pivotal step
to move from an incubator into their own space, right?
And a lot of incubators even have homegrown solutions
that you're forced to use.
Um, and then you're stuck with the process of having to add
dozens to hundreds of vendors, uh, when you're finally,
I guess, kicked out of that, that space.
Um, and some of those like leases
or contracts might not, um, pass over,
you know, in the same date.
So having to add, you know, like I said, dozens to hundreds
of vendors is a very time consuming task.
And half the time it's not necessary with a lot
of your tail suppliers
or suppliers that you don't order from, you know, every day.
Um, so when it comes to softwares
and how they can help you scale as you're, you're growing
and moving into different spaces, um,
that's definitely something that Sino can help with.
Like, for example, with in Vita,
when they're moving into a new space,
Sino can help hold orders
or, you know, change different dates with orders, um,
with certain suppliers.
So it's definitely something that, you know,
people might not even think of.
'cause you're, uh, negotiating a lease, you're trying
to make sure the ceilings aren't leak leaking,
you know, all these different things.
And it's a lot to keep up with.
So sometimes, uh, there are also pivotal things
that can be forgotten and,
and we're definitely here to help with that.
Um, so I think to flow through to the actual, um, subject
of software and, you know, how that's important to scaling
and not even procurement software, you know, exactly.
But software that helps, you know, manage your biotech, um,
and, and running everything you need.
I think, you know, Joel wanted to talk about that as well
with, you know, how do you pick certain softwares?
How do you know exactly what you're looking for?
I know we've had, you know, plenty
of calls over the past three years,
but you've also, you know, have evaluated lots
of different software even beyond procurement,
like ELN software or how do we keep up with inventory?
Because a lot of this happens
and you have to develop these practices when
you're moving out of an incubator.
Um, so I think it'd be great to learn a bit about that as
Well. Yeah.
Um, I, we were with a different marketplace vendor
before as the Gino,
and at that point, um, you know, some of our triggers were,
it wasn't integrating well with QuickBooks.
And so the Gino did, uh, it also had a huge catalog
of vendors, which is really what we wanted
because we needed to decentralize the ordering system.
We needed to push that out to the scientists
and have them be responsible for the ordering.
We didn't have the resources on operations
to have a procurement specialist.
So helped us do that.
Um, and as we've continued to grow,
I think we've grown into some of the features on zino.
You know, now we're, um, using an ERP system
through NetSuite, and so there's integration on that,
and we don't care about QuickBooks anymore.
And it's, it's been helpful that we've been able
to just grow into new phases of what Zaino offers.
Um, you know, we almost bailed on Zaino,
as you remember, two years ago.
Uh, because, uh, we were in this limbo phase
where we were gonna be moving
to an ERP, but we're still a startup.
And, um, so there was some budget pressure, uh,
and ultimately it, it integrated very well.
And, uh, I think this Gino was really able
to accommodate some of the things we needed.
Um, but yeah, it was just, it was a tool that we needed.
Um, because one of the other mistakes that we made
as we grew as a startup was allowing people
to have credit cards, which is just a terrible idea.
Um, and once you open that door, it becomes so easy
for these teams, um, and so hard to track.
Uh, and so trying to shut that door, um, we, we had
to force people to do something.
And, and Zaino was one of the ways we forced people out
of credit cards was, all right, you can only order
'cause you don't have a credit card
through the Zaino marketplace.
Um, because again, we don't have procurement.
So that was super helpful for us in order to get organized.
And now we have budgeting
and we have a finance team,
which we didn't at the time as a startup.
And so, um, you know, we just have to grow and adapt.
Um, and I think at least for us, we were able
to use different features of the tools it grew.
'cause now we use cost centers that
aligns right with our ERP.
So it's really easy,
and I don't have to be the budget police,
um, on who buys what.
And I think that leads to another question.
This was actually brought up yesterday on a few
of the other panels when it comes to, again,
not even zino, it came up yesterday.
Like even like building an ROI for
say your finance team
or, you know, whoever's holding a budget
on even things like service contracts
or saying like, oh, I actually do need maintenance on this.
And Nate, I'm, I'm sure you experience this as well.
Like, what is your experience with that
and how do you know team members
make it extremely important to show
that they need certain things done where, you know,
they might not have budget for it
or there could be a large lens on what they're doing?
Sure, thanks. Uh, in most of the companies
that I've worked with, uh, they don't establish, uh,
these tight budgets.
And so they're drawing from these, uh,
nebulous pools of cash.
And it's almost always the case
where the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Um, and so having, uh, some structure in place, uh,
to be able to establish, uh, patterns, routines,
and, uh, the importance, the priority
of periodic maintenance, uh, preventative maintenance
to avoid those reactionary sort of systems
that you see in a lot of startups
and a lot of universities where it's these worker
work orders don't come in
until something's tragically broken
and holding up a ton of work.
Um, so having those systems in place to be able
to establish priority, establish, uh, routine, uh,
and the discipline there that then lends itself to educated
and and smart spending
And on service contracts, our operations teams own them.
So one, one of the things that we saw was, you know,
if you have a relatively fresh PhD scientist
who wants a piece of equipment
and is gonna try to get a service contract,
they're just gonna take the contract.
Well, I have a script to follow
'cause I'm gonna try to get all the money I can, um,
because every company charges different things.
So there's different things I ask
and we have to be able to walk away, you know,
if it's more than 20% of the purchase price,
really gonna look hard at whether
or not we need that service contract
or if it's under six figures
or, you know, what is your experience?
What is your network's experience?
How bulletproof is this thing?
Like we walk away from service contracts when we need to.
Um, so yeah, somebody, me
or somebody on my team will be part of that negotiation.
And then we have a centralized computerized maintenance
management system, A-C-M-M-S that we can track, uh, for all
of our assets and preventive maintenance
or, um, unexpected maintenance service,
contract maintenance that's done.
Um, so one of the tools that we use, uh, to do that,
and I think your first question about this was, you know,
what stuff you can home brew
and what stuff you can't, I mean, you can't home,
like software is built for that
and it's not this geno software, but there's tools for that.
Um, you know, I think
probably most lab managers in this room have tried
to build a homebrew tracker for spend in their lab,
maybe even with credit cards.
And it never works. I've failed at two companies
and I think I've finally learned the lesson
that I won't try that again.
So yeah, you have to just develop other tools.
You have to be able to have software at your disposal, um,
because you can't really enforce
compliance in some of that stuff.
And there's just so many mystery spends that once you get
to a point where you need to do budgets, um,
it's just unacceptable.
So yeah, some things you can home brew, um,
tracking procurement is not one of them, in my opinion.
Gotcha.
I think one of the things that I would recommend home
brewing is your master equipment inventory,
at least to start with.
So if you're a small company
and you're, especially if you're sort
of coddled in a university or an incubator situation
and they handle maintenance
and they've handled, uh, equipment procurement
and you're maybe leasing some of the machines from
that incubator, uh, when it's time to really take all of
that equipment that maybe you've bought at auction
or used secondhand,
and you're getting really scrappy when you move
into your first real home.
The bible that we use, I call it the Bible,
is our master equipment inventory.
It speaks to Joel's point about knowing, uh, what plugs need
to go where, what size are those plugs,
what are the circuits?
Is it a high voltage circuit, completely different plug.
It's, uh, nothing's more embarrassing
or painful than getting into a room
and realizing that your minus 80 has flat blade plugs
and your, all your, all your walls are covered with, uh,
vertical plugs and nothing will fit.
And the freezer freezer's full of stuff
because you decided to move it full of reagents
and, uh, now you have nowhere to plug it in.
So you gotta get the electrician in there
after hours to swap in this plug.
Easy to do pain in the butt overall.
So that can be home brewed.
Your equipment list should be tailored exactly to what sort
of headings and, uh, criteria
and specifications you feel are most important that MEP,
like the ducting
or any exhaust drops that are required, any gases,
any water lines, drain lines are tremendously expensive
to add later on,
especially if you're working on the ground floor, all
of a sudden you're having to go back in there
and trench a drain line just because this, uh, cell sorter
or some washer needs a connection
and you don't have a sink in that vicinity.
So that bible, that master equipment inventory can be home
brewed and then it can inform every step down the line
as you're planning out a new facility.
It informs your space program.
It talks about, okay, how many rooms do we need,
how many benches, how many knee spaces?
And then you work from there as you develop the rest
of the program with the help of an architect
and hopefully their MEP engineers.
So I think we're a little over the halfway point.
I want to, you know, keep the floor open
to questions if anyone has any questions so far.
So I didn't hear you speak about like the potential
growth, you pass that back to future wise. Um, are
You considering that when you're
procuring these buildings?
Yes, so getting everybody's input really nice
and early, all the way down to the end users in these labs
so that not only are the, uh, personnel needs
and that growth, what you're forecasted, we usually try
and go five years out at least
because you're gonna be signing a seven year lease, uh,
typically maybe even a little bit longer depending
on what the terms look like.
You wanna have a nice long forecast for that growth.
Uh, that also includes equipment,
so it doesn't do us any good to take inventory of
what you currently have, build out a new expansion space,
and then all of a sudden your scientists are coming
to you week one and saying, oh yeah,
we need another three of these.
Uh, so getting everybody's input on
that forecasted expansion, especially their wishlist.
These might not even be approved by leadership yet,
but you wanna at least get that on the table so
that you have an idea of what everybody's vision is for
that next space and that expansion, that growth.
Yeah, we needed you when we built the lab in the va.
Yeah, I, and we, I went through an expansion, so we were
crammed, we needed more space.
So how do you split teams?
So we split teams a couple blocks away.
So we had two buildings and then that wasn't enough.
So we started a two year redevelopment on a brand new space.
And, um, based on my experience
and based on our leadership's experience,
we ended up building a bigger space than we need
right now in 2024.
So it's a five year build out, that's our five year plan.
We think we'll be busting at the seams in five years.
And, you know, we're a startup,
we're a venture capitalist funded startup.
So I think we were able to have that long-term vision
and spend that money, but not everybody is,
it's not always in the budget.
So we were fortunate enough that we could design a space
that we think will still be usable
for us in five years, but it's, it's a challenge.
I have you ever had the need for like a flex space
or a temporary space to house fume hoods
or a temporary lab before?
I know you're laughing, but we run into this all the time.
I'm at Tennessee Tech and we're building brand new buildings
and we're renovating too.
So we have a lot of chemical lab spaces
where there's fume hoods and different types of equipment,
and I'm tasked with as lab director to try to figure out
where we're gonna put stuff while
we're renovating buildings.
Yeah. Um, well if you're renovating a building,
you probably have a landlord on that building.
I would ask them if they have any temporary space.
That was one of the things we did.
So, um, we had another space that they hadn't had a chance
to turn over, so I like took their whole loading dock
and they mostly knew about what we were doing in there,
but we had chemical fume hoods, we had humidity chambers,
we had incubators, we ran new electrical, you know,
we did a lot with a little, um, and we had their blessing.
But, um, we also use a third party, eh, h
and s consultant that can always help be our backstop, um,
to make sure, you know, do you need
to do air quality testing in here?
I don't know. It's a warehouse. Let's check.
Um, so, you know, it is nice that we can tap into those sort
of resources just to make sure we're not making mistakes.
But, um, you know, we still have one building
and we moved out of one that was a concrete box,
and you can do world class science in a concrete box.
Um, it's a lot less complicated in a lot of ways.
So I think you just gotta be resourceful
and, you know, make sure you have experts who can kind of
give you advice that you're not putting yourself
and your employees at risk.
You're not, you know, breaking any
lease terms or things like that.
But on a temporary space like that too,
those terms are a lot,
usually a lot less you can get month to month.
It's a seven page document instead of a 35 page,
50 60 page documents.
So I think there's options out there,
but kind of like Nate said, you gotta think about it ahead
of time and you just gotta hit the bricks
and you gotta look at a lot of places, um, and,
and hopefully find one that fits.
But I'm a testament to
that you can do great science in a concrete box.
I can add to that a little bit.
It also will surprise you how little work really needs
to be done to properly prepare, uh, a flex space.
Like you can seal that cement floor.
I mean, you guys did that on a,
on a lot of your floor, right?
Where, and that's the finished spot.
So it doesn't take a ton as long
as you check off the safety boxes he's talking about.
Uh, and making sure that you're not creating any hazardous
situations, especially if you're dealing in chemicals.
Um, but you can seal that concrete floor, you can, uh,
slap some paint on the walls, make sure
that ventilation is taken care of,
and all of a sudden, uh, you can do
that world class science.
It may not look as aesthetically pleasing, uh,
to whoever's in charge and might be walking through.
So you don't want to tour investors through that space, uh,
unless you're trying to, uh, impress upon
how scrappy you are.
Uh, but, uh, but it can be done
and it can be done faster than you might think.
Uh, a lot of my clients, uh, I tell them,
if you're talking about building out a headquarters,
if you're moving out of your incubator
and you've got a lot of funding now
and you're building out a proper headquarters that you want
to tour investors through,
that's gonna take at least 14 months if we're building it
from an empty shell.
Uh, but if you need something fast
and we can finish it out
to the minimum required specifications, that can be done,
uh, in as little as eight
to 10 weeks depending on the the need.
Any other questions?
I can chat about one other major pitfall.
Um, and that's, uh, literally having, just, like I said,
getting those end users involved early to
develop your initial requirements.
Uh, you also want
to have everybody from leadership all the way down
to those end users, uh, signing off on your plans, uh,
whether you're moving into a space that's already built out
and you're lucky enough to find a building
that was generally suitable, or you're going from ground up
and you're building it completely.
You want everyone to literally sign off on those plans
all the way down to configuration of
drawers versus cabinets in, in the case work
and which direction those doors open.
Because every little change that comes at the end
of the project, that's
where those general contractors make their money.
It's where everybody makes their money.
It's when you make late changes that end up costing a ton
of, uh, money, but also time.
Uh, we've had projects delayed multiple months
because major changes.
Somebody came in and said, wait, that was supposed
to be the NMR lab,
and nobody communicated that to the design team.
It was left empty,
but then all of a sudden we're dealing with those gow lines,
the magnetic fields,
and we had to make major changes, uh, to, to insulate
that room from, uh, equipment surrounding it.
So getting everyone, absolutely everyone
to put their initials on those blueprints, uh, make sure
that it's sort of a speak now
or forever hold your piece situation even as it comes
to approved budgets.
Uh, I've seen it a few times where leadership, uh,
didn't consult their partners, their, their co-founders
on a certain budget,
and all of a sudden the invoices started rolling in
and it was a battle between those two co-founders
because one had not approved that total budget.
So sign off
and involvement from as many people as you're willing,
I know it can create a too many cooks in the kitchen sort
of situation, and that's something that you have to manage,
uh, but way better
to help everyone feel like they were at least given a voice
rather than somebody important coming in
and threatening to quit
because their lab isn't big enough when we're three
weeks away from moving in.
So I was just gonna ask a question with respect
to the finances behind this.
Um, is there a formula that you use for a contingency
whenever you're doing a, a significant build or move?
Like is it a percentage or a flat amount? Yeah,
I mean, our general contractor,
our general contractor carried a
contingency all throughout the project.
And usually you're gonna have a
tenant improvement allowance.
I mean, if you're redeveloping an existing space,
like you said a shell, um,
and so you know,
you're gonna get money from the landlord in some form in
order to make improvements on the building,
and then general contractor will carry a certain contingency
you're drawing down as you get
change orders throughout the project.
And then, you know, typically you're gonna have,
you're gonna hold back usually a 5% retainage on all your
subcontractors that you have to pay off, uh, when the,
when the usually, when the certificate
of occupancy is granted.
Does that answer your question? Yes, it does. Thank you.
Okay,
I think we have time for one more question.
Uh, first of all, thanks for this.
This is super informative.
Um, I haven't been able to go through a lab change,
but we're looking at one in a while
and I I just wanted to ask if you have anything
to say about just continuity of service.
Like is there any schema where you can, you know,
do, I don't know, get other instruments in and rent them
or do one instrument at a time so you can do that so
that you, you, you're not dropping
off your customers at that
Point? Have you ever played the demo
instrument game with a vendor?
You could definitely do that. They figure it out pretty
quickly, but, um, you know,
if you're really invested in plate readers,
you can probably get some plate readers for two
to four months, depending.
Sometimes vendors only allow you to have equipment
for a couple weeks, but that's a really nice tool.
Um, you can lease equipment as well,
but the interest terms are generally pretty bad.
Um, you know, if you have multiple pieces of equipment,
you could do a phase shutdown where you only have one piece
of equipment up at one place
and then, you know, you make sure it's not down
until the other one comes up later.
But if you're doing a long distance move,
that can be really challenging.
We were lucky enough to do a move that was pretty close,
so we had the option to do phased, um, for a move.
Does that, does that help?
Yeah, with enough, uh, planning
and foresight, you can definitely create
that overlap if you make sure to, uh, get the terms
of your lease and your moving.
Uh, just like when we're moving apartments or,
or houses, if you get, uh, a little bit of an overlap
where you're not trying to move everything in a weekend, uh,
then you can definitely plan that so
that your occupant occupancy is granted.
Uh, you can move certain instruments, uh, keep them running.
Uh, and like Joel said, if you needed to lease, uh,
there's a lot of companies
that will do relatively short term leases,
especially if you let them install
and de-install the equipment than they feel a lot more
comfortable, uh, loaning that out.
Uh, I've had several companies, uh, do a pretty good job of,
of not only creating that overlap with the landlords, uh,
and the movers executing a very rapid, uh, move,
but then also phasing it so that you can,
you can stagger those shutdowns.
I've got one more thought to add.
You can also just buy junk equipment
that may or may not work.
You can roll the dice on eBay lab X, you know,
an HGP auction
and say, Hey, there's a 30% chance this is not gonna work,
but you know, I'm gonna pay 20th of the cost.
And if it gets me through,
gets me through, it's worth the risk.
Let's thank our panel.