A11 - Sources Sought_Modeling_11Oct2022.docx

Small Business Sources Sought Notice

Title of Project: Mathematical Modeling and Economic Evaluation

Introduction. 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. The NAICS code for this Sources Sought Notice is: 541715 - Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences, Size Standard: 1,000 employees.

Background. Mathematical models of HIV transmission and disease progression in the United States can help predict the future of the disease, the impact of prevention and care strategies, and how best to allocate resources to optimize impact on health and disease outcomes. Under previous contracts, the Department of Health and Human Services’ (DHHS) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) developed a dynamic, compartmental model of HIV in the United States. The purpose of this HIV Optimization and Prevention Effectiveness (HOPE) model is to assess the impact of prevention and care strategies on the reduction of HIV incidence in the total population and by race/ethnicity, among other types of evaluations.

Given limited resources and a mandate to protect public health, it is important for CDC to have the tools to assess the costs and effectiveness of, and optimal allocation of resources for, a wide array of strategies and policies to prevent the transmission and acquisition of HIV and to extend the survival and quality of life for those who are infected.

Complex mathematical models often are required to predict future trends in HIV disease and potential impact of public health interventions because they need to account for many continually changing dynamics over time, including the estimated costs and effectiveness of interventions to prevent the spread of HIV and extend the life of those infected, various behaviors either increasing or decreasing risk of HIV acquisition or transmission, the variations in HIV disease progression and transmission risk based on care, treatment, and viral suppression status, while accounting for differences across key demographic subpopulations. New mathematical approaches (using models for simulations and projections) to assess infectious disease transmission and effects of treatment and care on survival are constantly being developed and extended.

Mathematical modelers can be difficult to recruit and retain. Even with extensive hiring efforts, hiring efforts over the past 5 years have resulted in very few qualified candidates to fill vacancies. Candidates who do qualify possess skills are in wide demand; over a dozen modelers over the last few years have departed government service. To sustain modeling capacity within CDC’s Division of HIV Prevention (DHP), CDC has contracted for mathematical modeling and economic evaluation since 2012—one research IDIQ from FY 2012 to FY 2016, and a second research IDIQ from FY 2017 to FY 2022.

For FY 2023 through FY 2028, DHP requires an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) research contract to acquire support in the following areas.

1. Expand and refine in MATLAB® a dynamic, compartmental model of HIV transmission and disease progression in the U.S. population. CDC’s HIV Optimization and Prevention Economics model—the HOPE model—is a dynamic, compartmental model that shows how persons with HIV progress through disease stages and within the HIV care “continuum.”

2. Conduct analyses of HIV transmission and disease progression using the HOPE model

3. Conduct HIV resource allocation analyses using the HOPE and other models.

4. Build, refine, and conduct analyses using agent-based and network models of HIV transmission and disease progression.

5. Conduct economic analyses of HIV prevention interventions.

6. Maintain a database of relevant literature related to HIV prevention interventions.

Purpose and Objectives. The purpose is to provide to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Division of HIV Prevention (DHP), an 'as needed' mechanism to obtain required services related to the mathematical modeling of HIV transmission and disease progression in the U.S., economic evaluation of HIV prevention, care, and treatment interventions, and resource allocation modeling.

Located within the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention (NCHHSTP), the Division of HIV Prevention (DHP) is responsible for providing national leadership and support for HIV epidemiologic research and surveillance of the behaviors and determinants of HIV transmission and disease progression, and for prevention and intervention research and the development, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of evidence-based HIV prevention programs serving persons affected by or at risk for HIV infection. These programs are authorized under the Public Health Service Act sections: 317 (42 U.S.C. 241 (a) and 247b); 301 (42 U.S.C. 241); 311 (42 U.S.C. 243), as amended.

Some general objectives of this effort will include, but are not limited to:

1. Build on and expand existing national-level models of HIV transmission and disease progress to evaluate the effects of HIV prevention strategies.

2. Develop new types of models as needed to better understand the effects of transmission networks.

3. Explicitly evaluate the optimal allocation of limited HIV prevention funds to prevent the most new cases at least cost.

4. Construct cost-effectiveness analyses that meet changing methodological standards and guide HIV prevention policy.

5. Provide technical support on models to ensure PMET staff are trained to program, refine, and restructure any models originally programmed by the contractor.

6. Update and maintain a database on relevant literature related to HIV prevention strategies and assist in the preparation of manuscripts for CDC clearance and submission to peer-reviewed journals.

Each Task Order is expected to produce a technical report suitable for use by DHP decision-makers and a manuscript suitable for publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal unless the specific Task Order indicates otherwise.

All work must be of sufficient quality for presentation at national conferences with peer-reviewed abstracts and for publication in high-impact, peer-reviewed scientific journals. Modified, expanded, or newly created models shall become the property of the CDC.

In summary, to support DHP's mathematical and economic modeling capacity, CDC seeks a contractor with a proven group of mathematical modelers with expertise in HIV transmission and disease progression modeling. This approach will allow DHP to sustain the mathematical modeling and economic analytic capacity needed to meaningfully inform HIV prevention program and policy. The contract mechanism will allow for assurance of appropriate responsiveness to input from the division, assignment of specific model-related projects of high interest to the division, and completion of those assignments within meaningful timeframes.

Project Scope. Independently, and not as an agent of the Government, the Contractor shall furnish all necessary personnel, facilities, supplies, scientific software (such as MATLAB®, NetLogo, and R), a reliable video platform for communication such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams, and equipment to produce reports, papers, or other deliverables as specified by each Task Order issued.

Functional Research Areas. The specific scope, technical requirements, deliverables, and due dates will be described in each request for Task Order proposal issued. All tasks shall fall within one or more of the following task areas.

Task Area 1: HIV Epidemic Modeling

1.1 The Contractor shall expand and continually refine in MATLAB® a dynamic, compartmental model of HIV transmission and disease progression in the U.S. population. This model is the HOPE model. This model shall be representative of the U.S. population in terms of HIV prevalence and incidence by transmission groups, race/ethnicity, gender, age and circumcision and PrEP status. Transmission dynamics shall reflect risk behaviors, disease stage, and steps in the HIV care continuum and associated transmission risks.

1.2. The Contractor shall provide the most up-to-date and scientifically proven model inputs, including consideration of Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) in evaluating inputs related to intervention efficacy.

1.3 The Contractor shall efficiently calibrate the model, by population and subpopulation, to a variety of outcomes including HIV incidence, prevalence, and HIV-related deaths, as well as by population and subpopulation distributions along the HIV care continuum.

1.4 The Contractor shall recalibrate frequently changing HIV outcomes as reported in HIV surveillance reports.

1.5 The Contractor shall produce ranges around outcome point estimates based on uncertain model inputs.

1.6 The Contractor shall conduct analyses assessing the impact of various combinations of behavioral and biomedical interventions on HIV transmission and disease progression using the HOPE model. These analyses shall consider a variety of prevention, treatment, and care interventions and implementation strategies, notably those related to HIV screening and testing, the HIV care continuum, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), and syringe services programs (SSPs), and consider their impact across demographic and transmission group subpopulations.

1.7 The Contractor shall conduct sensitivity analyses on model inputs, including the use of elementary effects methods, and show outcome sensitivities and uncertainties graphically and in text and tables.

1.8 The Contractor shall ensure that methodological approaches include consideration for reducing racial/ethnic disparities in HIV diagnoses, viral suppression, and incidence.

1.9 The Contractor shall ensure that methodological approaches allow for innovative prevention tools including new biomedical tools, innovative delivery modalities, new implementation strategies, select structural-level interventions, and other innovations based on scientific updates.

1.10 The Contractor shall develop the methodology for including comprehensive prevention approaches, such as cluster detection and response, syndemics, status neutral, and social determinants of health (SDoH).

1.11 The Contractor shall prepare articles for peer-reviewed scientific journals related to methods and analyses related HIV epidemic modeling.

Task Area 2: HIV Resource Allocation Modeling

2.1 The Contractor shall build and assess models for the optimal HIV prevention resource allocation across a variety of prevention, treatment, and care interventions and implementation strategies, notably those related to HIV screening and testing, the HIV care continuum, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), and syringe services programs (SSPs), and distributed across subpopulations, particularly by key demographics and transmission group, at the national, state, and local levels.

2.2 The Contractor shall link optimization methods described in 2.1 (above) to the HOPE model.

2.3 The Contractor shall also use the HOPE model to estimate the total costs needed to reach national HIV goals under various scenarios and be able to break down the total costs by intervention strategy, subpopulations, transmission groups, or federal agencies, as needed.

2.4 The Contractor shall develop the methodology for including comprehensive prevention approaches, such as cluster detection and response, syndemics, status neutral, select structural-level interventions, and social determinants of health (SDoH), in resource allocation analyses.

2.5 The Contractor shall prepare articles for peer-reviewed scientific journals related to the optimization of HIV prevention and treatment resources.

Task Area 3: Other Types of HIV Models

3.1 The Contractor shall construct new and modify existing agent-based and network models of HIV transmission and disease progression. These models shall include more detailed characteristics, compared with a compartmental model, of individual sexual and drug-using behaviors, such as serosorting and concurrency, and/or specific networks of partners are needed for the evaluation of HIV prevention policies.

3.2 The Contractor shall prepare articles for peer-reviewed scientific journals using these models.

Task Area 4: Economic Analyses

4.1 The Contractor shall conduct economic analyses, including cost-effectiveness, cost-utility, and cost-benefit analyses.

4.2 The Contractor shall conduct cost-effectiveness analyses using the HOPE model.

4.3 The Contractor shall demonstrate knowledge of current guidelines and standard practices in economic evaluation, including reference case requirements, analysis perspective (societal, provider), timeframe, and discounting.

4.5 The Contractor shall conduct return on investment analysis and budget impact analysis.

4.6 The Contractor shall demonstrate experience and expertise in the use of HIV-related utility weights.

4.7 The Contractor shall develop appropriate intervention and treatment cost inputs for use in models and expertise in various approaches to costing.

4.8 The Contractor shall prepare articles for peer-reviewed scientific journals using these analyses.

Task Area 5: Repository of information from published HIV-related prevention literature

5.1. The Contractor shall update and maintain a repository of the publication citation information and key findings from published works. Information gathered should be related to effectiveness analyses, economic analyses, and cost-effectiveness analyses of U.S.-based HIV prevention interventions implementation strategies, and comprehensive prevention approaches (such as cluster detection and response, syndemics, status neutral, and social determinants of health approaches).

5.2 The contractor shall utilize systematic review methods (systematic search of the literature, screen articles by title, abstract, and full text, abstract key information from the articles) to identify, evaluate, and summarize the literature.

5.3. The Contractor shall demonstrate familiarity with the GRADE methodology.

Task Area 6: The Effects of Emerging and Other Infectious Diseases on HIV Prevention

6.1 The contractor shall conduct mathematical modeling and economic analyses on how other infectious diseases or other emerging epidemics, such as COVID-19 and monkeypox, affect the HIV epidemic and efforts towards meeting the goals of the Department of Health and Human Service’s Initiative Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE).

6.2. This work shall also include analyses to identify enhanced HIV prevention efforts, allocate existing resources, or identify additional resources needed to offset any negative effects of these other diseases.

Task Area 7: Model Inputs

7.1 Examine and update key aspects of the HOPE model to ensure that CDC is using the most up-to-date and accurate scientific data available. Key aspects include: the model structure, inputs, calibration targets (e.g., updated HIV surveillance data), and validation of the inputs. If key aspects change, then update and recalibrate the model as needed.

Task Area 8: Bi-weekly Agenda, High-level Notes, and Monthly Reports

8.1 The Contractor shall coordinate and hold bi-weekly meetings via video or telephonic conferencing with CDC staff.

8.2 The Contractor shall provide monthly technical progress reports.

8. The Contractor shall provide a summary of expenditures for the current month and the cumulative expenditures for the active task order through the current month.

Task Area 10: Final Task Order Reports

10.1 Upon completion of all work under a particular task order, the Contractor shall prepare and submit to the Government a Final Task Order Report outlining the work accomplished under that particular task order which shall include all items in the monthly report for the final month of the task order, plus: recommendations and conclusions based on the experience and results obtained, high-level accomplishments of the task order, impact of problems on costs and/or date of completion; items of special interest; status of deliverables (task number, description, due date, status update, expected delivery date); total number of hours allocated by task, total hours used by task, total hours remaining by task; total amount invoiced by task and overall total amount to be invoiced for the full task order; number of hours by task, each position, and wage rate; a table of papers in progress/completed, status, and journal; and a table of publications (manuscripts, presentations, and posters).

10.2 Final Overall Report: upon completion of all work under the contract, the Contractor shall prepare and submit to the Government a final report outlining the work accomplished under the contract. The final report shall document and summarize the entire contract work and shall include: a summary of items in the final task order report, plus: title of report; period of performance for work included in report; high-level accomplishments of the task order, impact of problems on costs and/or date of completion; items of special interest; status of deliverables (task #, description, due date, status update, expected delivery date); total number of hours allocated by task, total hours used by task, total hours remaining by task; amount to be invoiced by task and overall amount; number of hours by task, each position, and wage rate; a table of papers in progress/completed, status, and journal; and a table of publications (manuscripts, presentations, and posters). This is to be provided upon completion of all work under the contract, no later than 30 days after the period of performance end date April 31, 2028).

Task Area 11: Transition to New Contractor

11.1 During the final months of the overall contract, if a new contract follows, the Contractor shall transition the work to the awardee of the new contract, including: transition of all files, hold conference calls to provide information to the awardee, and answer questions. If a new contract has not been awarded, the Contractor shall provide materials to CDC in an organized manner that allows for easy transition. Data and file transfer to begin no later than the first day of the final month of the contract.

Other Important Considerations. For all task areas, contractors must demonstrate the following capabilities:

1. Understand, construct, and program in MATLAB models built on differential equations.

2. Understand and implement the engineering concepts of linear programming and optimization.

3. Understand and be able to interpret and use complex HIV data from surveillance and other published literature.

4. Understand and implement cost-effectiveness, cost-utility and cost-benefit analyses.

5. Understand, conduct, and graphically depict rigorous approaches to sensitivity and uncertainty analyses.

6. Program, run, evaluate and refine mathematical agent-based, compartmental and network models of HIV transmission and disease progression.

7. Demonstrate an extensive history of publication in scientific, peer-reviewed manuscripts describing the studies, methods and their findings related to all of the skills listed above.

Anticipated period of performance. The period of performance will be five years.

Capability Statement/Information Sought. PAGE LIMIT 10 PAGES.

Interested offerors should submit a capability statement specifically addressing the criteria listed below ONLY. Capability statements that address requirements other than what is identified below will not be reviewed.

a. Your opinion about the difficulty and or feasibility of the potential requirement(s) or proposed acquisition, possible solutions and approaches that may currently exist in the marketplace, and information regarding innovative ideas or concepts;

b. Your staff expertise, including your availability, experience, and formal and other training;

c. Your current in house capability and capacity to perform the work;

d. Completed projects in the last 5 years of similar size and scope;

e. Corporate experience and management capability;

f. Provide any examples of prior completed Government contracts, reference, and other related information;

g. Recommendations for a different NAICS code. If so, please explain?

Information Submission Instructions: Please include a cover page with the following business information. The cover page does not count against the page limit for the capability statement.

1. Company name and address;

2. UEI number and CAGE Code, as registered in the System for Award Management (SAM) at http://www.SAM.gov/;

3. Do you have a government-approved accounting system? If so, please identify the agency that approved this system;

4. Business Size and Type of Business (e. g., small business, 8(a), woman owned, veteran owned, etc.) pursuant to the applicable NAICS code : 541715 Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences.

5. Technical point of contact including name, title, address, telephone number, and email address of the individual(s) who can verify the demonstrated capabilities identified in the response;

6. Contracts’ point of contact including name, title, address, telephone number, and email address;

7. In your opinion, can this work fit under a GSA Schedule? If so, which GSA Schedule? Please provide the schedule number.

Page Limitation: Capability Statements shall be limited to TEN (10) (including references, appendices, charts, illustrations, diagrams, and or resumes) single-spaced pages not including cover page. Pages shall be formatted as follows: MS Word, 8 ½ x 11, 12 pitch, Times New Roman font with one (1) inch margins.

Response Due Date: Submit capability statements via email to Liubov Kriel, Contract Specialist at vyh1@cdc.gov. Should you have any questions concerning this sources sought, please direct your questions in writing to the Contracting Specialist Liubov Kriel at vyh1@cdc.gov. The government will not respond to oral questions. Responses must be submitted no later than 5:00 pm, Eastern Standard Time (EST) by Tuesday, October 25, 2022. Capability statements will NOT be accepted after the due date. No telephonic or facsimile responses will be accepted.

The Government will not provide feedback on capability statements and we will not return capability statements received.

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 perform the work. 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 pre-solicitation synopsis and solicitation may be published on 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).

Response is strictly voluntary. It is not mandatory to submit a response to this notice to participate in any formal RFP process that may take place in the future. However, it should be noted that information gathered through this notice may significantly influence our acquisition strategy. All interested parties will be required to respond separately to any solicitations posted as a result of this Sources Sought notice.

We appreciate your interest and thank you in advance for responding to the Sources Sought.