In Vitro Assessments of Antimicrobial Activity (IVAAA)

The National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) established a Master IDIQ for In Vitro Assessments of Antimicrobial Activity on January 11, 2019, with a shared ceiling of $30 million and an ordering period that closed on January 13, 2026. This vehicle is no longer active for new task orders.

The vehicle contracted laboratory screening and assay services for evaluating candidate countermeasures against pathogens, toxins, and vectors within NIAID's purview. Task orders spanned four service areas covering antifungal activity screening, antibacterial assays, antiviral screening (including pandemic pathogens and BSL-3/4 viruses), and specialized assessments such as minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) determinations and production of well-characterized challenge material. Work was performed at contractor laboratory facilities nationwide.

Over seven years, NIAID issued 61 task orders totaling $40.2 million in combined potential value, of which $20 million (50 percent) has been obligated. Ordering activity peaked in 2024 with 9 awards and slowed to 1 award each in 2025 and 2026. All task orders were unrestricted competitive awards with no set-asides.

American Type Culture Collection dominated by potential value, holding 8 orders worth $19 million combined potential value. Utah State University followed with 16 orders valued at $9.5 million, while University of Alabama at Birmingham, Element Materials Technology Iowa City Inc., and Southern Research Institute held smaller positions. These five firms captured 93 percent of combined potential value; the remaining four awardees split the balance. By order count, Utah State University led with 16 awards, followed by Element Materials Technology with 11, and University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio with 10, together representing 84 percent of all task orders.

Recent orders show highly variable ceiling values, ranging from under $100,000 to $15.4 million. Individual task-order ceilings for standard screening work typically fell between $100,000 and $900,000, while longer-duration projects for challenge material production carried significantly larger ceilings. Typical performance periods ranged from six months to two years, with firm fixed-price contracts dominating, though two orders for challenge material were cost-plus fixed-fee structures. All 61 orders funded NIAID programs exclusively, with no cross-agency competition for vehicle resources.

The overarching goal of the In Vitro Assessments of Antimicrobial Activity program is to provide a broad and flexible range of in vitro assessment capabilities to the extramural research community to evaluate promising candidate countermeasures against the more than 270 pathogens, toxins, and vectors (PTVs) that are within the purview of DMID. In vitro assay capabilities include: product screening, assay development, and development of improved systems for culturing difficult to grow pathogens in vitro. These capabilities will allow the NIAID to respond to changing priorities as scientific and public health needs shift, including rapid responses to public health emergencies.