LSJ_Redacted.pdf

4. THE AUTHORITY AND SUPPORTING RATIONALE (SEE 8.405-6(b)) AND, IF

APPLICABLE, A DEMONSTRATION OF THE PROPOSED CONTRACTOR’S

UNIQUE QUALIFICATIONS TO PROVIDE THE REQUIRED SUPPLY OR SERVICE.

The authority permitting other than full and open competition is FAR 8.405-6(b)(1), Items Peculiar to One Manufacturer. Items peculiar to one manufacturer can be a particular brand name, product, or a feature of a product, peculiar to one manufacturer. A brand name item, whether available on one or more schedule contracts, is an item peculiar to one manufacturer. In accordance with FAR 8.405-6 (b)(1), the ECRI name is essential to the Government’s requirements and market research indicates other companies’ similar products, or products lacking the feature, do not meet, cannot be modified to meet the agency’s needs, or have not been approved for use within DLA.

The follow-on nature of this requirement for renewal of an expiring subscription of a critical data feed for the MedPDB monthly build process necessitates the use of the authority cited above.

The MedPDB system was developed by the joint Department of Defense/Department of Veterans Affairs (DoD/VA) Data Synchronization Program and therefore, not only DLA, but also the VA logistics and acquisition community rely on MedPDB system functionalities on a daily basis.

The Best Price analysis in MedPDB is a critical tool used to negotiate the most favorable pricing available among both DoD and VA suppliers. The data feed established by the Best Price analyses is required to be updated on a monthly basis, and the program code for the algorithm is part of a build sequence for updated Best Federal Price Analyses displayed in the graphical user interface.

The ECRI Institute is a member based non-profit that member organizations (commercial hospitals) submit their purchase history to for aggregation and sharing among members. ECRI accumulates spend information for over 2.4 million unique medical/surgical items. ECRI’s business model and other services provides thousands of commercial hospitals with the incentive to send their purchase price guidance to ECRI monthly. Anonymous price and facility counts are then provided to the PDB database build via the Supply Market Intelligence Supply Guide download. ECRI employs very strict rules to avoid conflict of interest with its participating entities to ensure that recipients receive trusted guidance. The latest platform on which this guide is available is built using cutting edge technology.

Another unique and highly specialized aspect of ECRI data is that items in the ECRI data are reported as received from commercial sites and the raw name and part number references are then synchronized to federal master items that are recognizable to DoD and VA medical/surgical buyers. Commercial pricing benchmarks are available in the MedPDB interface and include “12-month Commercial Average Price” and “12-month Commercial Low Price” for DoD and VA user browsing at the item level and Best Price analysis with links to site level cost avoidance opportunities. Benchmarks are included in monthly reports including DLA Enterprise Price Effectiveness Metrics, price comparison and price comparison reports that DoD and VA contracting personnel utilize to assist in determining fair and reasonable negotiation targets.

Commercial pricing benchmarks are often requested in ad hoc report requests from DoD and VA MedPDB users.

Other data subscriptions are available, but the fields and formats of these alternate data subscription are substantially different from those currently in use, and therefore would require significant analyst and developer labor costs for feasibility analysis, redesign, and recoding of current system logic and change management processes. In essence, the government would have to start over with this requirement and reengineer existing logic, design and processes to accommodate a different data feed. Having already had the ECRI Supply Guide in place, this reengineering would be a duplicative cost effort and there are no budget or business approvals that would justify this expenditure.

5. DETERMINATION BY THE ORDERING ACTIVITY CONTRACTING OFFICER

THAT THE ACQUISITION REPRESENTS THE BEST VALUE CONSISTENT WITH

FAR 8.404(d).

It is anticipated that the Government will perform a comparison of the proposed price with prices charged to the third-party contractor previously responsible for procuring the medical/surgical product pricing data feed in the Research and Development phase of the MedPDB, as well as a comparison to other raw data subscription providers, less data normalization and/or benchmarking services. The Contracting Officer will evaluate all proposals received, determine that pricing for this effort is considered fair and reasonable, and award a task order to the firm who represents the best value consistent with FAR 8.404(d).

6. A DESCRIPTION OF THE MARKET RESEARCH CONDUCTED AMONG

SCHEDULE HOLDERS AND THE RESULTS OR A STATEMENT OF THE REASON

MARKET RESEARCH WAS NOT CONDUCTED.

The DLA Medical Directorate conducted Market Research in August, 2025 to compare service offerings of the incumbent vendor (ECRI) with alternative solutions existing in the industry.

Market Research techniques included a review of Acquisition History for contracts used by the directorate to procure similar services and searching the FedBiz and GSA websites for other vendors with similar data service offerings. Primary comparative factors used to analyze alternatives included technical service offerings, functional familiarity, and cost to the Medical Directorate.

Alternative subscription services considered included the Cardinal Health Care IQ Informatics (HCIQ) product as well aa IQVIA (Formerly IMS).

Cardinal HCIQ Informatics does provide some of the benchmarking data that the government require as well as the ability to provide comparisons and product cross-references. However, it was determined that the time and resources required for systems development within the MedPDB to re-design existing logic and change management processes to accommodate this service would be cost prohibitive.

IQVIA commercial sales data is aggregated based only on Average benchmark pricing while in contrast ECRI Supply Market Intelligence solution provides low, 25th percentile, Median High Price for a significantly more comprehensive pricing sample.

The DLA requiring activity determined that a continuation of the subscription services provided by the ECRI Supply Guide medical supply benchmarking system was best suited to meet the program’s needs for a medical data feed subscription that will provide comprehensive Medical/Surgical sales data.

7. ANY OTHER FACTS SUPPORTING THE JUSTIFICATION.

Other data subscriptions are available, but the fields and formats of alternate data subscriptions are substantially different from those currently in use, thereby requiring significant analyst and developer labor costs to incorporate into current processes. Estimated costs for feasibility analysis, redesign, and recoding are at least $101,727, based on standard DCSO Independent Government Cost Estimate (IGCE) development guidelines, provided a technical evaluation that the fields provided by other data subscriptions can provide the same Best Price Analyses.

There are no budget or business approvals for reengineering the data feed.

8. A STATEMENT OF THE ACTIONS, IF ANY, THE AGENCY MAY TAKE TO

REMOVE OR OVERCOME ANY BARRIERS THAT LED TO THE RESTRICTED

CONSIDERATION BEFORE ANY SUBSEQUENT ACQUISITION FOR THE

SUPPLIES OR SERVICES.

DLA continues to exercise competition as often as possible and is required to conduct ongoing reviews to keep abreast of new technology, both in industry and in the Government. As a continuing effort DLA uses a variety of vendors, manufacturers, and contracts to fulfill its requirements and will continue its practice of surveying the market to ensure full and open competition. In accordance with FAR Part 8.405-6(b)(3)(i), the Limited Source Justification and the Request for Quote will be posted to FedBizOpss website to provide all commercial entities an opportunity to submit proposals for this requirement