A02 Request for Information (RFI) for ORTA Marketing Tool Subscription.pdf

THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI)/SOURCES SOUGHT (SS)

NOTIFICIATION TO INCLUDE INDUSTRY FEEDBACK

1. Title: Marketing Tool Subscription for the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command (USAMRDC)/Defense Health Agency (DHA), Office of Research and Technology Applications (ORTA)/Medical Technology Transfer Office (MTT)

2. Contracting Office: United States Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity

(USAMRAA)

3. Location: Fort Detrick, Frederick, MD

4. Summary: This RFI/SS is issued solely for information and planning purposes and shall not be construed as a solicitation, restrict the Government as to the ultimate acquisition approach, or serve as an obligation on the part of the USAMRDC. In accordance with FAR 15.201(e), responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. Responders are advised that the United States Government will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in response to this RFI. All costs associated with responding to this RFI/SS will be solely at the interested responder’s expense. Not responding to this RFI/SS does not preclude participation in any future Request for Proposal, if any is issued.

No evaluation letters and/or results will be issued to Responders responding to this RFI/SS.

The information resulting from this RFI/SS will determine interest and capabilities available in the marketplace; and will assist in developing acquisition strategy.

5. Background/Scope: ORTA/MTT has a requirement for a subscription (10 seats) for a commercial Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool/service to assist licensing professionals with identifying potential biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies having the scientific expertise and research & development capabilities to license DHA intellectual property (inventions) to advance the inventions to commercial products for the Department of Defense (DoD).

The objective of this requirement is to provide a subscription tool to the ORTA/MTT that leverages artificial intelligence to assist in the screening and identification of potential commercial partners and patent licensees for USAMRDC/DHA technologies. The tool must have the ability to provide a comprehensive summary of the commercial landscape related to the USAMRDC/DHA technology to include patents filed and their assignees, clinical trials conducted with results, and business information to include company size, location, products and points of contact to allow MTT to identify technology matches for commercialization based on a criterion, set of keywords, or generative prompts provided by end-users.

Vendor’s capability statements must include how the marketing subscription tool/solution addresses the following:

Ease of Implementation – The tool must be a browser-based solution that would run in the vendor’s environment. A product that is currently or will be 508 compliant is preferable.

Primary Data Sources – The marketing tool must include scientific and scholarly data sources such as Medline, U.S. patent and world-wide patent information/data, clinical trial data, business information from marketing reports, SEC filings, with links to press releases and company websites. The ability to expand to include other data sources and libraries is also highly desirable. The marketing tool must have the capability that search queries made by ORTA/MTT subscribers are not incorporated into the tool’s learning algorithm.

Supplementary Data Sources – The marketing tool should be able to complement its primary data source with additional auxiliary databases or external datasets (e.g., stand-alone text corpuses, social media data, online drug information databases, independent publication libraries) in order to provide additional information.

Search Flexibility - ORTA/MTT users must be able to tailor or weight the search criteria in order to obtain the most relevant results. Based on the weighted criteria, the marketing tool search results must be ranked by relevancy. Having fewer, more focused search results, is preferable to a larger number of results that are not actionable.

Automation – The marketing tool must offer the ability to run automated routine and scheduled queries. Another preferable feature is if the tool’s interface can be tailored to accommodate individual user workflow preferences.

Text Summarization – A text summarization feature is preferred, which would allow users to trace back information to source documents.

Results – ORTA/MTT users must be able to explore and export the results including sorting, filtering, and data visualization. The user also must be able to trace back to original documentation where the information was found. The results must include traditional export options (e.g. .csv, .xlsx, .pdf).

Capability statements should also address the following:

Validation and Development – What are the vendor’s benchmarks or methodology to measure the marketing tool’s performance? Is the vendor continually working on quality improvement of search results?

Strengths – What are the strengths of the tool in comparison to other generative AI tools (e.g., Perplexity, Consensus, Elicit)? Specifically, how is the tool uniquely suited to conducting literature searches and creating summaries that are relevant to marketing, intellectual property, business intelligence and clinical trial results?

Limitations – What are the limitations of the data source in ensuring search results are reliable and reflective of the comprehensive availability of scholarly information on the topic of interest? Additionally, what shortcomings does the language model have when intuitively tracing back information to source documents and interpreting the rationale upon which the results are based?

How to Respond:

Please submit a Capability Statement that describes relevant expertise and capabilities based upon the scope of this requirement as outlined above.

Each response should include the following business information and must not be more than ten

(10) pages in length:

a) Company name, mailing address, e-mail address, telephone, website address (if available), and the name, telephone number, and e-mail address of a point of contact having the authority and knowledge to clarify responses with Government representatives.

b) Unique Entity ID number, CAGE Code, and company structure (Corporation, LLC, partnership, joint venture, etc.). Companies also must be registered in System for Award Management (SAM, at www.sam.gov) to be considered as potential sources.

c) Any and all Government IDIQ Contracts (e.g. Federal Supply Schedule, OASIS, etc.)

you currently hold (to include the vehicle and your contract number) that could be used to fulfill this requirement.

d) Describe your organization's specific and relevant experience and expertise to fulfill this requirement. Experience must be of similar size and scope. Please provide examples or provide references of previously completed deliverables related to this requirement.

e) Provide information relating to capabilities, novel ideas, industry best practices, industry capabilities to meet the needs of the Government’s requirement as outlined above. Outline company specific capabilities that match the scope/objective outlined above in order for the Government to make a fair capabilities determination.

Capability statements will be reviewed for (1) Relevant experience and expertise based on the size and scope of the outlined requirement; (2) Company specific capabilities that match the work outlined in scope/objective above. The formal closing date for this RFI/SS and for the submission of all responses is NLT 28 March 2025 at 12:00PM ET. All responses shall be submitted electronically using PDF or MS Word formats to the POC, Ms. Skylar Wells at skylar.a.wells2.civ@health.mil. The Government will not entertain questions regarding this RFI/SS. All responses received will be considered; however, a determination by the Government not to compete the proposed requirement based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government.