SuperScript® has been a dominant brand in reverse transcription for 15 years now. Over the years, the mighty RT brand has churned out oodles of cDNA for use in a demanding range of RNA analysis techniques.
While enjoying the lion’s share of the RT market in 2002, Invitrogen decided to up the game a bit and introduce SuperScript® III.
We took a closer look at the citation trajectories of the reigning champ and it’s successor over the years. We had a few reasons for doing this:
- We were interested in how long it would take a large firm like Invitrogen to “upgrade” its client base and how the adoption rate impacted citations.
- We also wanted to see how RT-based applications grew in usage over the last 10-15 years. Since SuperScript® has owned such a large portion of many RT-based applications, we thought it would be a useful proxy for overall market growth.
A Look at the Numbers
As you can see, the SuperScript® brand didn’t really miss a beat during the SuperScript® II to III handoff. SuperScript® III citations continued along the same strong growth trajectory that SuperScript® II set in preceding years.
- Impressively, SuperScript® III ran at a 156% CAGR in citations from 2003 to 2008
- SuperScript® II flattened out during this period to a 7% CAGR
- It took SuperScript® III over 7 years (mid-2010) to overcome SuperSript II’s citation footprint
Old Habits Transcribe Hard
Despite the marketing push and performance advantages of SuperScript® III, SuperScript® II seems to have maintained its cult following.
For the last 7 years, SuperScript® II citations have been relatively flat (1.5% CAGR), BUT they haven’t declined. Why is that?
We’re not insiders, so we don’t have a crystal ball into the situation, but we will have a few updates for you next month that look into a few regional trends and application associations that may shed some light on this. Stay tuned…