Solicitation: 75N95025Q00169

Title: The NIH NeuroBioBank Brain and Tissue Repository

INTRODUCTION

PURSUANT TO FAR Subpart 5.2—Synopses of Proposed Contract Actions, THIS IS A PRE-SOLICITATION NOTICE OF A PROPOSED CONTRACT ACTION.   

THIS IS A PRE-SOLICITATION NON-COMPETITIVE NOTICE OF INTENT TO EXTEND THE “NBB COLLECTION SITE” CONTRACTS WITHOUT PROVIDING FOR FULL OR OPEN COMPETITION (INCLUDING BRAND-NAME).

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) intends to extend the NIH NeuroBioBank (NBB) Collection contracts for a period of six (6) months (May 1, 2025 to October 31, 2025). The current contracts are as follows:  Greater Los Angeles Veterans Research and Education (75N95019C00045), McLean Hospital contract (75N95019C00046), Pittsburgh University (75N95019C00047), State of Maryland (75N95019C00048), Mount Sinai School of Medicine contract (75N95019C00049) and Miami University (75N95019C00050) (i.e., the NBB Collection Sites).

NORTH AMERICAN INDUSTRY CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM (NAICS) CODE

The intended procurement is classified under NAICS code 541714 – Research and Development in Biotechnology (except Nanobiotechnology) with a Size Standard of 1,000 employees.

REGULATORY AUTHORITY

The resultant contract will include all applicable provisions and clauses of the Federal acquisition Requlation (FAR) in effect through the current Federal Acquisition Circular (FAC).

STATUTORY AUTHORITY

This acquisition is conducted under the authority of 41 U.S.C. 3304(a)(1) under provisions of the statutory authority of FAR Subpart 6.302-1.

DESCRIPTION OF REQUIREMENT

Purpose and Objectives

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke (NINDS), the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the Blueprint for Neuroscience (https://neuroscienceblueprint.nih.gov), National Institutes of Health (NIH) make human post-mortem brain tissue and related biospecimen samples widely available for research on neurological, psychiatric, and neurodevelopment disorders through multiple contract collection sites (i.e., the “NIH NeuroBioBank” or “NBB”)  which provide services to actively acquire, receive, store, characterize, catalog, preserve, and distribute human brain specimens to qualified investigators.

The purpose of the NIH NeuroBioBank support contract is to provide services that increase the availability of human brain tissue for research.  Multiple awardees/collection sites provide these services which provide critical resources for research on neurological, psychiatric, and neurodevelopmental disorders.  These multiple awardees/collection sites acquire at least 70 donors per year with the possibility of up to 150 unique human donors per year for a range of 350-1,000 by the end of the five (5) year contract period.

NIDA is in the process of awarding the follow-on competitive NIH NeuroBioBank and Tissue Repository requirement.  The contracts currently supporting the NIH NeuroBioBank were made via competitive awards on August 31, 2019 to the aforementioned NBB Collection Sites with a period of performance from September 1, 2019 through August 31, 2024.  These contracts were five (5) year Cost Reimbursement contracts with a combined total contract ceiling of $103,985,994. These contracts were extended for an 8-month period of performance from September 1, 2024 to May 1, 2025 with a combined total contract ceiling increase of $11,280,184.

The NBB Collection Sites are the only contractors that can fill the NIH NeuroBioBank’s specific needs with minimal loss of disruption to the infrastructure of this critical research program.  If NIDA was to award a contract to any other contractor for this short period of time, it would create disruption of these research services and impact millions of dollars of completed and ongoing research.

As indicated by this notice, NIDA intends to extend the current NBB Collection Sites’ contracts to cover critical research services during the period between the end of the current contract period and the award of the follow-on competitive NIH NeuroBioBank and Tissue Repository requirement. Modifying the aforementioned contracts specified herein to extend the ordering period is the only possible way to ensure the continuation of these critical research and development services without a lapse in services and to ensure successful transition to the follow on contracts.

CLOSING STATEMENT

THIS SYNOPSIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR COMPETITIVE PROPOSALS and the Government is not committed to award a contract pursuant to this announcement. However, interested parties may identify their interest and capability to respond to this notice.

A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed contract based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. All responsible sources may submit a capability statement, proposal, or quotation which shall be considered by the agency. The information received will normally be considered solely for the purposes of determining whether to proceed on a non-competitive basis or to conduct a competitive procurement for this six (6) month bridge period.

Responses to this notice shall contain sufficient information to establish the interested parties' bona-fide capabilities for fulfilling the requirement and include: unit price, list price, shipping and handling costs, the delivery period after contract award, the prompt payment discount terms, the F.O.B. Point (Destination or Origin), the Dun & Bradstreet Number (DUNS), the Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), and the certification of business size. All offerors must have an active registration in the System for Award Management (SAM) www.sam.gov.www.sam.gov.”

All responses must be received by Monday, March 31, 2025 at 9:00 a.m., Eastern Standard Time, and reference number 75N95025Q00169. Responses may be submitted electronically to Robin Knightly, Contract Specialist, at [email protected], and cc Christine Frate, Contracting Officer, at [email protected].

Fax responses will not be accepted.

Extensions to the deadline will not be granted.

Please contact Robin Knightly, Contracting Officer, at [email protected] and cc Christine Frate, Contracting Officer, at [email protected] with any questions.