Upgrade of existing High Throughput Screening Platform

This is a Small Business Sources Sought notice. This is NOT a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts, or quotations. The purpose of this notice is to obtain information regarding: (1) the availability and capability of qualified small business sources; (2) whether they are small businesses; HUBZone small businesses; service‐ disabled, veteran‐owned small businesses; 8(a) small businesses; veteran‐owned small businesses; woman‐owned small businesses; or small disadvantaged businesses; and (3) their size classification relative to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for the proposed acquisition. Your responses to the information requested will assist the Government in determining the appropriate acquisition method, including whether a set‐aside is possible. An organization that is not considered a small business under the applicable NAICS code should not submit a response to this notice.This notice is issued to help determine the availability of

qualified companies technically capable of meeting the Government requirement and to determine the method of acquisition. It is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government to issue a solicitation or ultimately award a contract. Responses will not be considered as proposals or quotes. No award will be made because of this notice. The Government will NOT be responsible for any costs incurred by the respondents to this notice. This notice is strictly for research and information purposes only.Various programs and labs within NCATS have been given the directive to perform different types of high throughput screens to evaluate some biological activity and to potentially develop new therapeutics or therapeutic combinations in some cases or in others to determine the relative toxicity of chemical compounds under test.  To do this, a biological experiment is performed in the presence of hundreds of thousands of chemical compounds at various concentrations, requiring that millions of samples be tested for each experiment. This requires that these experiments be run in a high density well plate, to both minimize the total reagent volume used per experiment and to facilitate less total plates to be used to perform an entire assay. Typically, one experiment might consist of screening 500,000 compounds at 5 different total concentrations for a total of 2.5M samples.  If this experiment is run using a 1536 well plate, meaning 1536 samples can be tested at a time, this requires nearly 1650 plates. The only way to accomplish handling this many well plates for an experiment is high throughput screening (HTS), which requires a high degree of robotic automation.There are heavily used robotic screening systems at NIH/NCATS; the Kalypsys primary screening system and the Tox21 Robot.  Both of these systems are comprised of robotic arms and all of the necessary platform equipment such as external guarding; robotic bases; electrical junction boxes and cabinets and a variety of other components.  Associated with the core components of the system are the peripheral devices; ranging from liquid handlers, pin tools, plate incubators and compound storage carousels.  All of these associated peripherals coupled with the robotic work cells are what comprise an automated screening system.This request is for an upgrade of an existing High Throughput Screening Platform. Kalypsys Primary Screening system that was put into service in 2005 and the Tox21 Robotic Screening system that was put into service in 2011. As these systems increase in age, it becomes increasingly imperative that they can be maintained and supported.  Also, it is important that we incorporate state of the art instrumentation to further increase the capabilities of the platform.  This acquisition is to integrate several pieces of state-of-the-art instrumentation onto our existing screening platform to enhance the overall capability of the system and to introduce new detection types and workflows to perform novel screens.  Specifically, the goal of this project is to add a SCARA robot to our existing High Throughput Screening system with the following existing furnished equipment:FLIPR PentaBruker Rapiflex MALDIAnalytikjena CyBio MALDI-TOF-MS automated sample preparation liquid handlerBecause these systems are such key tools in our entire operation, it is necessary that they are operating correctly with as little down time as possible.  As such, parts and accessory items must be compatible with this existing equipment.  Capability statement /information sought. The respondents must submit clear and convincing evidence that they are able to meet the requirements described above. The response shall include: the unit price, list price, shipping and handling costs, delivery days after contract award, delivery terms, prompt payment discount terms, F.O.B. Point (Destination or Origin), product or catalog number(s); product description; and any other information or factors that may be considered to determine the method of acquisition. The information must address each of the minimum specifications above.  The response must also indicate the country of manufacturer.For equipment/supply requirements, small business responses must include: (1) the place of manufacturing (i.e. address if supply/equipment is a domestic end product and include country of manufacture), as well as (2) the size status of the manufacturer under the applicable NAICS code (i.e. address Nonmanufacturer Rule).The response must also include their DUNS number, organization name, address, point of contact, and size and type of business (e.g., 8(a), HubZone, etc., pursuant to the applicable NAICS code and any other information that may be helpful in developing or finalizing the acquisition requirements.The response must include the respondents’ technical and administrative points of contact, including names, titles, addresses, telephone, and e‐mail addresses.All responses to this notice must be submitted electronically to Rieka Plugge at rieka.plugge@nih.gov on or before July 17, 12:00 PM. Facsimile responses are NOT accepted.“Disclaimer and Important Notes: This notice does not obligate the Government to award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in response. The Government reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate. Any organization responding to this notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed to allow the Government to determine the organization’s qualifications to provide the product or perform the services specified herein.Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. After a review of the responses received, a presolicitation synopsis and solicitation may be published in Beta sam.gov. However, responses to this notice will not be considered adequate responses to a solicitation.Confidentiality: No proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your response. The Government reserves the right to use any non‐ proprietary technical information in any resultant solicitation(s).”