SBSS- 75N95023Q00294.pdf

SMALL BUSINESS SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE

1. Solicitation Number: 75N95023Q00294

2. Title: Tecan Fluent 1080 (brand name or equal), Infinite Microplate

Reader, and a Te-VacS ™

3. Classification Code: J066- Maintenance, Repair And Rebuilding of

Equipment – Instruments and Laboratory Equipment

4. NAICS Code: 423450 - Medical, Dental, and Hospital Equipment and

Supplies Merchant Wholesalers

5. Size Standard: 200 employees

6. Description:

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 qualif ied 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; (3) their size classification relative to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for the proposed acquisition; and (4) availability of domestic sources manufactured in the United States in sufficient and reasonably available commercial quantities and of a satisfactory quality.

For equipment/supply requirements, small business responses must include: (1) the place of manufacturing (i.e. address if supply/equipment is a domestic end product and include country of manufacture), as well as (2) the size status of the manufacturer under the applicable NAICS code (i.e. address Non-Manufacturer Rule).

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.

This notice is issued to help determine the availability of qualif ied companies technically capable of meeting the Government requirement and to determine the method of acquisition. It is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government to issue a solicitation or ultimately award a contract. Responses will not be considered as proposals or quotes. No award will be made as a result of this notice. The Government will NOT be responsible for any costs incurred by the respondents to this notice. This notice is strictly for research and information purposes only.

Background:

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the nation’s leading medical research agency and the primary Federal agency whose mission is to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge. The mission of the NIH also includes enhancing health, lengthening life, reducing illness and disability, conducting, supporting and making medical discoveries that improves and saves people’s health and lives.

The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) is a part of the NIH, with a mission to catalyze the generation of innovative methods and technologies that will enhance the development, testing, and implementation of diagnostics and therapeutics across a wide range of human diseases and conditions.

NCATS Drug Metabolism & Pharmacokinetic (DMPK) Core requires a Tecan Fluent in the main laboratory. The new Tecan Fluent platform will enhance the high throughput screening capabilities for not only the DMPK but for all of NCATS when screening compounds for Tier I ADME properties. The Tecan Fluent platform will be able to accommodate up to 6 plates on the bench top depth of the instrument.

The system will offer one touch easy teaching for third party devices. Attached to the new Tecan Fluent will be the Liquid Handling Arm (LHA) and Robotic Manipulating Arm (RMA) which will allow the system to transfer volumes down to 200nL and dispense different volumes simultaneously. This will save resources and time when running experiments. The Infinite Microplate Reader which will be attached to the new Tecan Fluent will be able to detect UV-Vis and fluorescence which we use in our DMPK laboratory daily when screening assays. Overall, the Tecan Fluent platform software will provide a dedicated operator interface for the easy daily running of the system. In addition, the Infinite Microplate Reader instrument software will provide luminescence and fluorescence-based detection, which is another highly used detection modality.

Purpose and Objectives: The purpose of this requirement is to procure the Tecan Fluent 1080 (brand name or equal), Infinite Microplate Reader, and a Te-VacS ™ for the Drug Metabolism & Pharmacokinetic (DMPK) Core at National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS)

Project Requirements: See the attached Purchase Description for the complete list of brand-name items, descriptions, and salient characteristics.

Purchase Description:

Item Product# Description Qty

Fluent 1080 AirFCA, MCA, with RGA 1 30042031 Fluent 1080 Base Unit, includes 1 year warranty 1 2 30042032 Full Door Panel, Fluent 1080 1 3 30042664 Door Lock Set, Fluent (1 pair) (for front shield) 1 4 30042582 Panel Set Base, Fluent 1080 1 5 30042588 Panel Set Top, Long Z, Fluent 1080 1 6 30042594 Top Cover for Std & Long Z RGA, Fluent 1080 1

7 30042715 Grid Segment, Extension, Rear, 20 Grids, New Instrument Only 4

Arm #1 AirFCA

8 30042200 Flexible Channel Arm (FCA), Air, 8-Tip 1

Arm #2 AirMCA

9 30042350 Multi-Channel Arm(MCA), Fluent 1 10 30051709 Head Adapter Set, includes 30032060 and 30032062 1 11 30032027 Rack, Head Adapter, MCA 384 2 12 30041305 Deck Segment, MCA384, Diti Active Carrier, Front 1

Arm #3 RGA

13 30042405 Robotic Gripper Arm (RGA), Extended z-rail 1 14 30042430 RGA Fingers, Eccentric, Standard, set of 2 1

Fluent 1080 Cabinet

15 30042035 Cabinet, Fluent 1080 1 16 30042054 Shelf, Cabinet, for Devices, Large 1 17 30042074 Door Lock Set, Fluent Cabinet (1 per door) 4 18 30149966 Mounting bracket for monitor arm 1

19 30100539 Ergotron 200 series Combo Arm (monitor + keyboard/mouse), black color, for EVO or Fluent 1

Deck Segments Included

20 30042712 Grid Segment, Side Wall, Left, 87mm 1

21 30042524 Deck Segment, Troughs, 100 mL, 8-Pos, with Waste Chute 1

22 30042738 Nest Segment, DiTi Waste Chute Through Deck, 4- Position, Landscape, 7mm 1

23 30126013 Grid Segment. 6 Grids, Multipurpose 1 24 30042725 Nest Segment, 6-Position, Landscape, 7 mm 7 25 30042781 Nest, for Fluent Deck Segment, Microplate/DiTi, 61mm 6

26 30187662 SHAKER QINTRSUMENTS BIOSHAKE Q1 3

27 30127737 Microplate Adapter, Flat, Q.Intsruments BioShake 3000, Standard, 2016 3

28 30136963 Driver, Q.Instruments, BioShake 3000, EVOware and Fluent Control 1

29 30214873 Edgeport (Digi) 4-port serial adapter, converts one USB port to 4 RS-232 serial ports. 1

30 30042863 Hotel, Fluent, 9-Position, Microplates or Tip Boxes, Adjustable Shelves 3

31 30042711 Grid Segment, Side Wall, Right, 87mm 1

Te-VacS

32 10760680 Vacuum Separation, High Throughput, Te-VacS 1 33 30042701 Grid Segment, 6 Grids 1 34 10760680 Base Plate, Te-VacS 1

35 10760626 Vacuum Block, Type C, Tall, Clear, Biology, for Top Skirted Cartridges (Qiagen), Te-VacS 1

36 30042799 Grid Adapter Set for Optional Devices, EVO Style Grids, Set of 2 1

Infinite Microplate Reader (UV-Vis/Fluorescence)

Computer and Accessories

37 30216478 Computer, Desktop, Windows 10 Professional 1 38 30123658 Monitor, Touchscreen, 22” LCD, Planar 1 39 30024944 Keyboard and Mouse, Wireless 1

Training

40 30216156 FluentControl (US) 4 Days 1

Installation and Software Overview

41 30181008 Introspect 1 year license, included at point of sale with new instrument purchase only 1

42 30042001 Fluent Gx Assurance Package 1

43 30001582 Installation and Software Overview, for Hardware installation (new and upgrade) 1

1. Salient Characteristics

The significant, essential physical, functional, performance, or material element(s) that the Government’s minimum acceptable standards are for an equivalent system are as follows:

This equipment must:

Fluent General Platform

• The system must be able to accommodate up to 6 plates in the bench top depth of the instrument.

• System must be teach free for standard microplate modules.

• System must offer one touch easy teaching for third party devices.

• The system must offer a tailored and customizable run time environment separate from the setup software.

• The system must have an integrated controlled e.g. touch screen for daily operation/ operation without keyboard.

Liquid Handling Arm and Robotic Manipulating Arm

• System must be able to transfer volumes down to 200nl.

• Each tip must be able to dispense a different volume at the same time.

• Each pipetting channel must be able to individually access samples, one at a time.

• The disposable tip system must be able to offer nested tips for increased capacity and to dispose of the nesting wafers without use of gripper arm.

• High pipetting security must be available through sensitive and adaptive liquid level detection. The system must recognize no liquid , not enough liquid, incorrect aspiration with a single liquid level detection and aspiration supervision event generating dual and confirmatory signals

• System must include an eight-tip liquid handling arm with variable distance between tips from 9 to 38mm. Each tip must be independently controlled and be used individually to access samples, one at a time.

• Pipetting in each tip of the 8 tips must be controlled with a precision motor which drives a plunger resulting in air displacement to enable sample pipetting.

• Pipetting system must NOT be driven by a liquid filled circuit activated by syringes. For simplified maintenance purposes, no liquid filled pipetting, no system fluid and waste bottles required. Water displacement technologies will not be considered because of contamination potential which is deleterious to RNA extraction protocols.

• Pipetting arm internal channels must be protected by an in-line filter.

• Pipetting technology must include;

o cLLD – capacitive Liquid Level Detection for use with conductive liquids o AST – Adaptive Signal Technology

• The instrument must utilize disposable tips. All tip sizes must utilize the same disposable tip adapter. Disposable tips are available in 10, 50, 200 and 1000 µL sizes.

• Disposables tips are available from the original manufacturer AND 3rd party plasticware suppliers. Tips must NOT be restricted to a patented design.

Disposable tips for the system must be available from at least 3 DIFFERENT manufacturing sources.

• The instrument must have a pipetting range from 0.5uL to 1000ul.

• All liquid handling parameters, such as air gap sizes, aspiration and dispense speeds and mixing must be accessible to the operator and must be easily accessible for change.

• The system must be able to utilize up to two independent arms for greater throughput through multitasking. A Liquid Handling arm as well as an independent robotic gripper arm to move labware and consumables around the work surface.

• For any reason, there must be the possibility to easily upgrade or exchange the arms of the robotic system at the customer’s site.

• System must be enclosed with Plexiglas protection shields, securing the work deck and user accidental tampering.

• The Robotic gripper should have access to the edges (side, front and rear) of the system to allow optimal device integration and minimize occupation of the liquid handling area.

• Operator must be able to stop the operation of the instrument by opening the front shield.

Software

• The system must provide a dedicated operator interface for the easy daily running of the system. The system will preferably offer a touch interface rather than keyboard and mouse.

• The system must allow support less experienced users to set up the system -such as embedded usage guides, SOPs, photos or videos

• Editing of the software protocol must be able to be navigated from a single program interface.

• System software is equipped with an instrument simulator that can be installed on many separate PC in order to program entire functional methods at a remote location while the actual instrument is running.

• The virtual simulator must visually reproduce instrument movements and respond with the same return commands as the actual instrument.

Accessories, Storage and Miscellaneous

• The system must be able to accommodate single tube-racks for microfuge tubes in an arrangement of 1x32 tubes.

• Instrument must have an open-deck arrangement where individual labware carriers are removable.

• Instrument must enable the possibility of carrier mounting to a lower surface below the primary worktable surface for form a “lower deck”.

• The system must have a front-mounted touchscreen where a Graphical User

Interface may be used to run the method. This front-mounted touchscreen must be separate from the monitor used with the instrument control computer.

• The system must enable customized Graphical User Interfaces for showing run setup, inputting settings such as sample count, volume, number of plates, etc.

into the script, as well as enable selection of worklist f iles from a Windows directory.

Integrated Peripherals

• The system can be integrated with a fully automated multimode microplate reader which includes Absorbance and Fluorescence.

• The system must include a shaking device with variable orbital settings and software-controlled speed.

• The system must have 3 cooling devices (+4C to 70C) critical for keeping precious reagents at 4C and enabling complex protocol incubations.

2. Other Requirements

The Contractor shall provide an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) certified service technician to perform setup and installation for staff members.

Warranty - The Contractor shall warrant that the system will be free from defects for a period of at least 2 years from the date of installation, inspection by the Government, and acceptance. The Contractor shall further warrant that all components will be free from defects for a period of at least 2 years from the date of installation, inspection by the Government and acceptance. Warranty service shall include trouble-shooting capabilities based on complete knowledge of the entire system. A rapid response (within one business day) to service requests is required. The Contractor shall demonstrate that it is capable of providing this level and speed of service. Warranty shall not include routine or periodic maintenance services.

Contract Type and / Delivery Date: The Government anticipates awarding one (1) firm fixed-price purchase order under a future solicitation. The anticipated delivery date including installation and trianing is within four (4) to six (6) weeks after receipt of order

(ARO).

The Contractor shall deliver and install the equipment to the NIH Delivery Address in Rockville, Maryland within 90 days after receipt of order (ARO). The equipment shall be delivered and installed between the hours of 8:00am and 5:00pm EST, Monday through Friday. Delivery must be Freight on Board (FOB) Destination and include inside delivery.

The equipment shall be delivered and installed in coordination with the NCATS personal [to be named at time of award] at the time the equipment is ready to be shipped.

The Contractor shall provide on-site training within 30 days of equipment installation.

The Contractor shall deliver, install, and provide training on the system within 42 days after receipt of order (ARO).

Delivery Address:

NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) 9800 Medical Center Drive, Bldg C, Chemistry Lab Rockville, MD 20850

In case domestic sources are available and capable of fulf illing the Government’s need, and a future solicitation is published, the Government will use evaluation preferences in accordance with FAR 25.

Capability statement /information sought: Respondents must provide clear and convincing documentation of their capability of providing the products specified in this sources sought notice.

Moreover, interested vendors must provide a capability statement for:

• the diff iculty and/or feasibility of the potential requirement or proposed acquisition, possible solutions and approaches that may currently exist in the marketplace, and information regarding innovative ideas or concepts; and

• information regarding respondents’: (a) staff expertise, including their availability, experience, and formal and other training; (b) current in-house capability and capacity to perform the work; (c) prior completed projects of similar nature; (d) corporate experience and management capability; and (e) examples of prior completed Government contracts, references, and other related information.

• written capability statements should demonstrate organization’s capability to provide the brand-name or equal items listed in the Project Requirements section above. If the entity believes to be an authorized resellers of the brand-name product specified in this announcement or it desires to offer an equal product, the entity’s capability statement must include: (a) product, catalog, model, and/or part number(s); (b) product description;

(c) all relevant information and documentation that the item(s) offered meets the salient physical, functional, or performance characteristics as specified in the Project Requirements section above; and country of manufacture of the product.

The respondent must also provide their DUNS number, organization name, address, point of contact, and size and type of business (e.g., 8(a), HubZone, etc., pursuant to the applicable NAICS code and any other information that may be helpful in developing or finalizing the acquisition requirements.

Submission Instructions:

One (1) copy of the response is required and must be in Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF format using 11-point or 12-point font, 8-1/2” x 11” paper size, with 1” top, bottom, left and right margins, and with single or double spacing.

The information submitted must be in and outline format that addresses each of the elements of the project requirement and in the capability statement /information sought paragraphs stated herein. A cover page and an executive summary may be included but is not required.

The response is limited to ten (10) page limit. The 10-page limit does not include the cover page, executive summary, or references, if requested.

The response must include the respondents’ technical and administrative points of contact, including names, titles, addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail addresses.

All responses to this notice must be submitted electronically to the Contract Specialist and Contracting Officer. Facsimile responses are NOT accepted.

Responses must be received by 9:00 a.m., Eastern Time, on May 19, 2023, and reference Sources Sought Number 75N95023Q00294. Responses must be submitted by email to Chandani Hangilipola, Contract Specialist, chandani.hangilipola@nih.gov

“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 presolicitation synopsis and solicitation may be published in Federal Business Opportunities. 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).”