PREVENT Cancer Program (PREVENT)

The National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute has issued a Master IDIQ under the Preclinical PREVENT Cancer Program for preclinical efficacy studies and intermediate endpoint biomarkers supporting the development of cancer preventive agents and vaccines. Ordering closed on September 21, 2018, making this vehicle closed to new task orders as of seven years and nine months ago.

The vehicle established on September 22, 2015, contracted preclinical research encompassing detailed efficacy studies in animal models, pharmacodynamic biomarker identification, and endpoint validation for potential chemopreventive and vaccine candidates targeting breast, colorectal, bladder, lung, pancreatic, ovarian, prostate, endometrial, esophageal, hepatocellular, and Lynch syndrome–associated gastrointestinal cancers. Representative recent awards included evaluation of RXR pathway inhibition for triple-negative breast cancer prevention ($774,513), development of a chemopreventive formulation of 4-methylumbelliferone ($1.27 million), multi-antigen vaccines for bladder cancer ($901,729), and a frameshift peptide vaccine for Lynch syndrome–associated gastrointestinal cancers ($891,984).

Eight distinct university and research institutes held prime awards across 50 total task orders with $29.3 million in combined potential value, 100 percent of which has been obligated. University of Alabama at Birmingham led with 11 orders worth $7.5 million combined potential value, followed by the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center with 9 orders worth $5.5 million and University of Oklahoma with 8 orders worth $4.1 million. These five largest primes—including the Medical College of Wisconsin and Weill Medical College of Cornell University—captured 84 percent of combined potential value. The National Cancer Institute served as the sole customer across all task orders. All 50 task orders carried no set-aside designation. Task order values ranged from approximately $2,400 (orientation and kickoff meetings) to $1.27 million, with most substantive research contracts falling between $500,000 and $1 million over performance periods of one to five years.

The Division of Cancer Prevention (DCP) of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded a Master IDIQ under the Preclinical PREVENT Cancer Program for Preclinical Efficacy and Intermediate Endpoint Biomarkers. The contract supports the development of potential cancer preventive agents or vaccines employing detailed preclinical efficacy studies and determining pharmacodynamics efficacy, and biomarkers, which parallel the effectiveness of a given agent. The primary endpoint of the efficacy studies shall be to prevent the development of invasive cancers whereas the biomarker studies will identify endpoints which correlate with the effectiveness of a given preventive agent or vaccine. These endpoints might be measured in body fluids, normal or at risk tissue from the target or in histopathlogically altered tissue from the target organ(s).