THIS IS A PRE-SOLICITATION NON-COMPETITIVE NOTICE OF INTENT TO AWARD A CONTRACT OR PURCHASE ORDER WITHOUT PROVIDING FOR FULL OR OPEN COMPETITION (INCLUDING BRAND-NAME).

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), Office of Acquisitions, Contracts Management Branch Red, NIA Section on behalf of the National Institute on Aging intends to negotiate and award a contract for Data Science Assistance services in Neurodegenerative Disease.

NORTH AMERICAN INDUSTRY CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM (NAICS) CODE
The intended procurement is classified under NAICS code 811219: Other Electronic Precision Equipment Repair and Maintenance with a Size Standard of $20.5 million.

REGULATORY AUTHORITY
The resultant contract will include all applicable provisions and clauses of the Federal acquisition Requlation (FAR) in effect through the Federal Acquisition Circular (FAC) 2005-101, dated October 26, 2018.

STATUTORY AUTHORITY
This acquisition is conducted as non-competitive under the authority of 41 U.S.C. 253(c) under provisions of the statutory authority of FAR Subpart 6.302-1 -- Only One Responsible Source and No Other Supplies or Services Will Satisfy Agency Requirements.

This acquisition is conducted under the authority of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 13-Simplified Acquisition Procedures, Subpart 13.106-1 (b) (1), Soliciting from a single source.

DESCRIPTION OF REQUIREMENT

Project Description
Project Title: Annual Maintenance Support Services for a Thermo Fisher Orbitrap Fusion Lumos ETD LC-MS system.

General Requirements
Independently and not as an agent of the Government, the Contractor shall furnish all the necessary services, qualified personnel, material, equipment, and facilities, not otherwise provided by the Government as needed to perform the Statement of Work below:

Scope: Contractor shall maintain and repair the Ultimate 3000 HPLC and Fusion Lumos ETD Mass Spectrometer to ensure they operate within the manufacturer's standard product specifications as determined by Thermo Fisher. Contractor shall provide labor and parts needed.
2. Preventative Maintenance (PM):
Contractor shall provide one PM per calendar year. during each twelve-month period. Each inspection will evaluate instrument performance and provide calibrations, alignments, lubrication and part replacement as necessary to maintain the instrument operation substantially in accordance with the published technical specifications for the instrument. Inspections must comply with Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) equipment manuals.
3. Service and Repair:
Contractor shall provide unlimited technical support (telephone) and service repairs at no additional cost to the Government. If technical support is unsuccessful, contactor shall provide unlimited number of demand on-site service visits with a maximum 72-hour response.
Contractor shall provide OEM certified parts for preventative maintenance and service repairs, except for consumables, at no additional cost to the Government. Shipping and handling parts under warranty or contract shall not be charged to the Government.

Contractor shall provide an OEM service technician to perform preventive maintenance inspections, service repairs and technical support.

Purpose and Objectives
The purpose of this acquisition is to acquire maintenance services to support a a Thermo Fisher Orbitrap Fusion Lumos ETD LC-MS system used by the NINDS Protein/Peptide Sequencing Facility (PSF). To ensure standardization of research data and continuation of equipment warranties, maintenance may only be performed by the original equipment manufacturer, Thermo Electron North America LLC.
The purpose of this requirement is to obtain preventive maintenance services on existing Government-owned laboratory equipment manufactured by Thermo Electron. The contractor shall be an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Authorized Service Provider of the Thermo Fisher Orbitrap Fusion Lumos ETD LC-MS system, and all services shall be performed by OEM certified factory-trained technicians using genuine OEM parts.

Only Thermo Electron North America LLC is capable of providing the necessary support services because the equipment requiring hardware and software maintenance is proprietary to this company, the original equipment manufacturer. As such, only Thermo Electron North America LLC is authorized to provide service and parts for this equipment. No other company is able to provide original equipment manufacturer (OEM) parts, OEM trained technicians, or OEM-licensed software upgrades. This FACSAriaII flow cytometer requiring maintenance is used for research purposes and non-functional or inappropriately calibrated equipment would irreparably damage to the Laboratory of Molecular Medicine and Neuroscience (LMMN) longitudinal research data. For these many reasons and to ensure continuity of scientific research data, Thermo Electron North America LLC is the only contractor capable of meeting the needs of this requirement.

Period of Performance
The period of performance will consist of one base year as specified below:

April 30th, 2019 through April 29th, 2020 (base)
April 30th, 2020 through April 29th, 2021 (year 1)
April 30th, 2021 through April 29th, 2022 (year 2)
April 30th, 2022 through April 29th, 2023 (year 3)

Sole Source Justification: Thermo Electron is the only contractor who has manufacturer-trained and certified technicians to maintain and upgrade their patented and proprietary software and hardware. They are the only firm who can provide updates to their scientific equipment and software. They are the only firm who manufactures and certifies replacement parts for this equipment. All required parts and supplies for this equipment must be purchased from Thermo Electron. Replacement parts or accessories must be compatible with the existing system. All manufacturer training is provided for Thermo Electron engineers only and they do not allow third-party vendors to provide preventive maintenance nor emergency repair services on their equipment.

CLOSING STATEMENT
This synopsis is not a request for competitive proposals. However, interested parties may identify their interest and capability to respond to this notice.

Responses to this solicitation must include clear and convincing evidence of the offeror's capability of fulfilling the requirement as it relates to the technical evaluation criteria. The price proposal must include the labor categories, an estimate of the number of hours required for each labor category, fully loaded fixed hourly rate or each labor category, breakdown and rationale for other direct costs or materials, and the total amount. The technical proposal must include CV information for proposed Key Personnel that meet the minimum requirements specified above.

In addition the Dun & Bradstreet Number (DUNS), the Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), and the certification of business size must be included in the response. All offerors must have an active registration in the System for Award Management (SAM) www.sam.gov."
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. 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.

All responses must be received by ¬¬¬¬26 March 2019 at 3PM Eastern Time and must reference number HHS-NIH-NIDA-SSSA-19-004333.

Responses must be submitted electronically to Andrea King, [email protected], and must reference the solicitation number HHS-NIH-NIDA-SSSA-19-004333, on your electronic request. FAX requests are not accepted.

"All responsible sources may submit a capability statement, proposal, or quotation, which shall be considered by the agency."