Memorandum for Record – Limiting Competition at or Below the Simplified Acquisition Threshold

This is a Contracting Officer's justification and approval memorandum for a sole-source procurement under FAR 12.102(a) for acquisitions at or below the simplified acquisition threshold. The Fort Hood Health Contracting Branch is awarding a follow-on purchase order to the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston for the procurement of frozen human cadavers and laboratory facilities for Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center. The contract vehicle is a fixed-price purchase order (Request #0012397882) funded through Other Funds (DHP) for Fiscal Year 27, with a total value of $214,000.00 for a base period and four option years.

The Department of Emergency Medicine requires human cadavers for essential medical training to support military personnel's combat casualty care skills and operational readiness. The justification establishes that the human cadaver market is highly specialized and limited, composed primarily of accredited, non-profit sources such as university willed-body programs and tissue banks. Due to significant ethical, safety, and legal risks, only accredited sources are viable for government procurement. Market research conducted on February 6, 2026, and March 9, 2026, including searches of the GSA eLibrary, ECAT, FPDS, PCF database, and a Dynamic Small Business Search yielded zero competing sources. The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston is documented as the only vendor meeting the required regulatory and ethical compliance standards for providing human cadavers for military medical training. This follows a previous award to the same vendor (W81K0022P0102) from March 31, 2022, which established the vendor's sole-source capability under FAR 13.106(b)(1)(i). The Contracting Officer certifies that the anticipated cost is fair and reasonable and that the sole-source procurement is in the Government's best interest.