Sol_75N91024R00009_Amd_0001.pdf

(x)

75N91024R00009 x x copies of the amendment; (b) By acknowledging receipt of this amendment on each copy of the offer submitted ; or (c) By separate letter or electronic communication which includes a reference to the solicitation and amendment numbers. FAILURE OF YOUR ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BE

RECEIVED AT THE PLACE DESIGNATED FOR THE RECEIPT OF OFFERS PRIOR TO THE HOUR AND DATE SPECIFIED MAY RESULT IN REJECTION OF YOUR

OFFER. If by virtue of this amendment you desire to change an offer already submitted , such change may be made by letter or electronic communication, provided each letter or electronic communication makes reference to the solicitation and this amendment, and is received prior to the opening hour and date specified.

x

NCI

Bethesda, MD 20892-7511 National Cancer Institute National Institutes of Health

NCI-EXEC

Bethesda, MD 20892-7511 National Cancer Institute National Institutes of Health

12/18/20240001

13. THIS ITEM ONLY APPLIES TO MODIFICATION OF CONTRACTS/ORDERS. IT MODIFIES THE CONTRACT/ORDER NO. AS DESCRIBED IN ITEM 14.

12. ACCOUNTING AND APPROPRIATION DATA (If required) is not extended.is extended, Items 8 and 15, and returning

Offers must acknowledge receipt of this amendment prior to the hour and date specified in the solicitation or as amended , by one of the following methods: (a) By completing

The above numbered solicitation is amended as set forth in Item 14. The hour and date specified for receipt of Offers

11. THIS ITEM ONLY APPLIES TO AMENDMENTS OF SOLICITATIONS

FACILITY CODE CODE

10B. DATED (SEE ITEM 13)

10A. MODIFICATION OF CONTRACT/ORDER NO.

9B. DATED (SEE ITEM 11)

9A. AMENDMENT OF SOLICITATION NO.

CODE

8. NAME AND ADDRESS OF CONTRACTOR (No., street, county, State and ZIP Code)

7. ADMINISTERED BY (If other than Item 6)CODE 6. ISSUED BY

PAGE OF PAGES

4. REQUISITION/PURCHASE REQ. NO.3. EFFECTIVE DATE2. AMENDMENT/MODIFICATION NO. 5. PROJECT NO. (If applicable)

1. CONTRACT ID CODE

AMENDMENT OF SOLICITATION/MODIFICATION OF CONTRACT

11/26/2024

CHECK ONE A. THIS CHANGE ORDER IS ISSUED PURSUANT TO: (Specify authority) THE CHANGES SET FORTH IN ITEM 14 ARE MADE IN THE CONTRACT

B. THE ABOVE NUMBERED CONTRACT/ORDER IS MODIFIED TO REFLECT THE ADMINISTRATIVE CHANGES (such as changes in paying office, C. THIS SUPPLEMENTAL AGREEMENT IS ENTERED INTO PURSUANT TO AUTHORITY OF:

D. OTHER (Specify type of modification and authority) appropriation data, etc.) SET FORTH IN ITEM 14, PURSUANT TO THE AUTHORITY OF FAR 43.103(b).

E. IMPORTANT: Contractor is not is required to sign this document and return __________________ copies to the issuing office.

ORDER NO. IN ITEM 10A.

14. DESCRIPTION OF AMENDMENT/MODIFICATION (Organized by UCF section headings, including solicitation/contract subject matter where feasible.)

The solicitation is being amended to:

1. Respond to questions from potential Offerors; and

2. Change the date for the receipt of Offers.

Period of Performance: 09/16/2025 to 09/15/2030

16A. NAME AND TITLE OF CONTRACTING OFFICER (Type or print)15A. NAME AND TITLE OF SIGNER (Type or print)

15C. DATE SIGNED 16B. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 15B. CONTRACTOR/OFFEROR 16C. DATE SIGNED

(Signature of person authorized to sign) (Signature of Contracting Officer)

MICHAEL P. WELSH

STANDARD FORM 30 (REV. 11/2016)

Prescribed by GSA FAR (48 CFR) 53.243

Previous edition unusable

Except as provided herein, all terms and conditions of the document referenced in Item 9 A or 10A, as heretofore changed, remains unchanged and in full force and effect .

National Cancer Institute’s

Biomedical Computing Support Services

75N91024R00009 Amendment 1

I. Questions & Answers

Q1. Given the upcoming holidays and the potential for schedule conflicts across industry this busy season, would the government kindly consider extending the response date through January 31st to allow for thoughtful and thorough submissions for the subject solicitation?

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: The proposal due date is extended to 2:00 EST, January 17, 2025.

Q2. Considering the upcoming holidays, would NCI kindly consider extending the response deadline by two weeks to Monday, January 20th, 2025? Additional time would allow for more responsive and higher quality submissions and provide prime contractors greater opportunity to solidify partnerships that serve the needs of NCI. Thank you.

Q3. Please clarify whether we are to place the Past Performance response in the Business Volume or in the Technical Volume.

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: The Past Performance response should be included in the Business Volume only. (Ref. Solicitation, SECTION L, a. GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS, 15. Past Performance Information, p. 142)

Q4. Please clarify if in addition to submitting the Subcontracting Plan through the SBCX portal, should a copy be placed anywhere else in the technical or business proposals?

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: The Small Business Subcontracting Plan should be submitted through the SBCX portal only. The Biomedical Computing Support Services solicitation subcontracting plan is available at https://osdbu.hhs.gov/subcontracting/fe9e85d6-576e- 4100-9124-6f65780f82e9

Q5. Please clarify whether there should be a section addressing the SOW described in Attachment 3 in the Technical Proposal or whether the Technical Proposal should only contain three 15-page sections for the three Sample Task Orders. If the Technical Proposal should contain a section addressing the SOW in Attachment 3, what is the page limit of this section if any?

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: All Offerors must submit a single technical proposal, with a separate, but clearly marked section for the Sample Task order 1 (task areas B and C), Sample Task Order 2a (task areas B and C) and Sample Task Order 2b (task area C). A technical response is not required for the Base Statement of Work or Task Order 1 (task area A), Contract Initiation/Kick-Off. (Ref. Att. 11 - ATPI Biomedical Data Computing Support Services, p.1)

Q6. Please clarify what is meant by Section 1 and Section 3. I.e., what is the content of these sections?

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: SECTION 1: COVER SHEET AND TABLE OF CONTENTS and SECTION 3: OTHER EVALUATION FACTORS are outlined in Attachment 11 - ATPI Biomedical Data Computing Support Services. As referenced in Attachment 1, II, B2., these sections are not included in the total page count of the Technical Proposal page limits.

Q7. Please clarify what equipment, specifically computing infrastructure, is provided by the Government. I.e., what computing infrastructure should be supplied by the Contractor for the Sample Task Orders?

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: No Government Furnished Property is anticipated for this acquisition. (Ref. SOLICITATION, P. 171) The specifics related to existing software or platforms will be described as applicable in future Task Order RFPs. For STO1, the vendors should expect to provide all computational infrastructure.

As necessary during the performance of future task order, access to the government data locations (cloud based), government's GCP and AWS cloud accounts may be provided.

During the performance of future task order related to STO2b, the NIH Biowulf and CCAD https://osdbu.hhs.gov/subcontracting/fe9e85d6-576e-4100-9124-6f65780f82e9 will be made available, as well as the High performance computing infrastructure associated with the genomics laboratory (with support of schedulers like SGE and slurm.

For more information on the Government’s current research and tools, please visit Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics - NCI.

Q8. Would the government consider an extension to the proposal due date?

Q9. Per Attachment 11, item 6, Section 508 requirements are applicable. However, the Article H-19, p. 75, of the solicitation notes that offerors must submit an appropriate HHS Section 508 Accessibility Conformance Checklist or an Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR) (based on the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) to demonstrate 508 compliance.

Please confirm that the technical proposal itself does not need to be 508 compliant.

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: As noted in ARTICLE H-19, any Offeror responding to this solicitation must comply with established HHS Information and Communication Technology (ICT) accessibility standards. Offerors’ proposals must demonstrate compliance for all electronic and information technology (EIT) products and services developed, acquired, maintained, or used under this contract/order, including EIT deliverables such as electronic documents and reports. Offerors’ 508 Compliance will be evaluated in accordance with Section M.

It is the Government’s preference that Offerors’ submit proposal documents that are Section 508 compliant to the maximum extent practicable. However, the proposal documents themselves, are considered incidental to contract administration. Thus, a Section 508 Accessibility Conformance Checklist or an Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR) is not required to accompany the proposal documents themselves.

Q10. Attachment 28, the Supply Chain Risk Assessment (SCRA), appears in Section J, List of Attachments, however, it is missing from the attachments included in the solicitation.

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: Attachment 28 has been added to the attachments in the solicitation.

https://dceg.cancer.gov/

Q11. Is it a requirement to submit with the proposal the Summary of Related Activities or can they be submitted post-award?

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: Yes, the Summary of Related Activities should be submitted as an attachment to the Technical proposal.

Q12. Can the government confirm that labor hours from small and large business subcontractors expended to meet the technical requirements of the task orders are excluded from the level of effort proposed?

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: Yes, as referenced in ARTICLE F.3. LEVEL OF EFFORT, the labor hours exclude subcontractor labor.

Q13. Can we use the same Key Personnel for multiple task orders?

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: Proposals will be evaluated in accordance with Section M.

Each sample task order will be evaluated on criterion 1-4 as specified in Section M of the solicitation. This includes the ability to provide and maintain operation support levels for meeting scope and task order(s) objectives, as identified in Criterion 3. Attachment 11 - Summary of Related Activities will also be reviewed as a part of the proposal review process.

Q14. Can we use the same Experience to be mentioned for multiple Task Order?

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: Proposals will be evaluated in accordance with Section M. The Offeror must demonstrate the ability to fulfill the minimum requirements of the RFP.

Q15. Could you please provide more insights on “If a Contractor has no past performance on any earlier task order, past performance will be considered through other sources, such as the Contractor's original proposal. “

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: Section L, Part d, Section a., addresses the award of task orders after the award of the base contract(s). Item# 5 identifies that Past Performance on previously awarded task orders under this base contract will be considered during the award of future Task Orders. In the event that an Offeror for a Task order award does not have previous task orders under this base contract, the Offeror's past performance will be considered through other sources, to include the Contractor's original proposal for the base contract.

Q16. For each sample task order, is the Criteria (1-4) are evaluated?

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: Yes, each sample task order (STO1, STO2a and STO2b) will be evaluated on criterion 1-4. (Ref. Solicitation, Section M, p. 178)

Q17. As having Subcontract is a requirement as a part of the proposal, could you please mention the % of Subcontract goals.

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: The anticipated minimum goals for this RFP are as follows:

31% for Small Business; 5% for Small Disadvantaged Business; 5% for Women-Owned Small Business; 3% for HUBZone Small Business; and 5% for Veteran-Owned Small Business and Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business. (Ref. Solicitation, Sec. L,

p. 167-168) update with FY 25 numbers. Please note that these numbers are a correction to the solicitation SECTION L, 2. INSTRUCTIONS TO OFFERORS, c. BUSINESS PROPOSAL INSTRUCTIONS, 6. Small Business Subcontracting Plan, (4)(d)(xi) from FY24 numbers to FY25 numbers.

Q18. Do we have any separate attachments for Government Notice for handling proposals?

If so, could you please mention the Attachment number?

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: There are no separate attachments for Government Notice for handling proposals.

Q19. Do we need to mention only the Labor Category Hours?

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: Attachment 10 should include all direct labor costs to include direct labor category hours, material cost, travel cost and other direct costs as applicable.

Attachment 17 should provide all proposed costs to includes direct labor hours and rates.

Q20. Under which section in the Technical Proposal, do we need to submit the mentioned attachment?

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: Personnel should be addressed as outlined in Section L, b.

TECHNICAL PROPOSAL INSTRUCTIONS, 1. Technical Discussions, b. Personnel, P. 158-159 Summary of related activities should be included as an attachment to the proposal.

Q21. Does the Project Objectives refers to Att_3-SOW_Biocomputing_Base Under A.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: Yes, the Project Objectives should be inclusive of Attachment 3 – SOW Biocomputing Base.

Q22. Do we need to submit the Contractor Agreement along with Proposal?

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: No, the Contractor Agreement is not required to be submitted with the proposal.

Q23. Would the Government be willing to extend the due date by two weeks to allow adequate time to review the Government's response to the questions?

Q24. Will the government please confirm if proposed subcontractors are required to submit a sealed bid to the government with their cost proposal information? If a sealed bid is required, please provide instructions on how the subcontractors should submit this to the government. Companies have deemed this information proprietary and prefer not to submit to another company.

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: Yes, in accordance with SECTION L, 2. INSTRUCTIONS TO OFFERORS, c. BUSINESS PROPOSALS INSTRUCTIONS, 17. Subcontractors, a complete cost proposal in the same format as the offeror’s cost proposal should be submitted for any subcontractors proposed. Subcontractor sealed proposals can be submitted via email to the Contract Specialist at antoinette.robinson@nih.gov and the Contracting Officer at welshmi@mail.nih.gov mailto:antoinette.robinson@nih.gov mailto:welshmi@mail.nih.gov

Q25. The Solicitation states " i. Goals, expressed in terms of percentages of total planned subcontracting dollars, for the use of Small, Small Disadvantaged, Women-Owned, HUBZone, Veteran-Owned, and Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Concerns as subcontractors." In Att.11, page 5 states “Note: Subcontracting plan goals are calculated as a percentage of subcontracted dollars as opposed to small business participation which is calculated as a percentage of the combined total value (CTV) of the sample task orders.” Would the government please verify if the small business percentage goals to be used in Attachment 15 are based on the total contract value or subcontracting dollars?

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: The small business percentage of CTV is the Dollar Value divided by the combined Total Value (CTV) of the sample task orders proposed x 100.

Q26. STO1 Task C states: "Ensure no existing federal, HHS, or NIH system can be leveraged, reused and/or slightly modified to meet the mission need [i.e. no Government Off-the-Shelf (GOTS) solution." To provide the best price to government, please provide the existing federal, HHS, NIH systems (GOTS) currently in use to support bioinformatics and data analytics and what are their capabilities?

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: For more information on the Government’s current epidemiology and genomics research and tools , please visit Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics - NCI.

Q27. For STO1, can the government share the architecture diagram and what is the expected end of life for the current architecture?

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: The Government seeks best-in-class data management practices and the IT architecture to support it. The vendors should expect to provide all computational infrastructure.

Q28. STO2a states: "The contractor will operationalize vetted NIH data generic backends (https://www.nlm.nih.gov/NIHbmic/generalist_repositories.html), as well as Data Commons" To what extent should the in-browser applications interact with the different generic backends/generalist data repositories: a)should users have the ability to query through datasets located across all repositories from within the application?; b) Should users have the option of modifying and uploading their own datasets from within the in-browser application suite to these repositories, or is the ability to pull data from each repository enough?

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: The intent is that if a NCI author puts their data in one of the Generalist data repositories, the NIH data platform should be able to use the appropriate data API to provide access to the data as though it was stored in Box.com for example or another cloud middle-layer. The user should not be able to tell the difference. No query, The data platform should know the data exists.

Q29. In the Solicitation, Section L, The Government states that "Offerors shall submit the following [Past Performance] information as part of their Business Proposal." Also, in Section L on Page 175, the Government requests Organizational Experience, Performance History, and Pertinent Contracts. In Attachment 11 page 4, Past Performance is listed as part of Section 3: Other Evaluation Factors of the Technical Proposal, but advises the offeror to follow the instructions outlined in Section L. Can the Government confirm if the Past Performance should be submitted in both the Business Proposal and Section 3 of the Technical Proposal within each STO response?

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: The Past Performance response should be included in the Business Volume only.

Q30. The solicitation states for the offeror to submit the SB Subcontracting plan in the SBCX portal. However, the plan is not showing up within the system for us to do so. If you all could please send us the link, that would be more than appreciated.

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: The Biomedical Computing Support Services solicitation subcontracting plan is now available at https://osdbu.hhs.gov/subcontracting/fe9e85d6- 576e-4100-9124-6f65780f82e9