Notice of Intent to Sole Source: Service contract for Philips 3T MRI Scanner

The National Institutes of Health intends to award a Firm-Fixed-Price purchase order to Philips North America LLC.

In accordance with FAR Part 6.302-1, Philips North America LLC is the only known responsible source who can provide the item that meets our standards. No other source has been identified who can provide the requirement listed below.

The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) Biomedical and Metabolic Imaging Branch’s (BMIB) research is focused on improving and developing new medical imaging methods that would give more information about the health of the heart, liver and other organs in people who might have problems with their metabolism such as obesity.  As part of the National Institute of Health (NIH) obesity initiative, The BMIB has integrated the use of a large bore high magnetic field Magnetic Resonance (MR) scanner with the use of a metabolic unit to characterize metabolic activity in subjects with a wide range of body mass indexes. An improvement and technical advancement in MR spectroscopy, developed by the lab, has also been applied to measure the fat in the heart, liver, pancreas, and muscles, and to correlate measurements with metabolic activity. The capability to measure more than just fat in the liver is unprecedented using proton spectroscopy. The opportunity to look at metabolites such as liver glycogen and choline opens the door for better understanding of lipid and glucose metabolism under a more controlled environment of a metabolic unit.

The current NIDDK 3T MRI scanner is an integral resource that provides multiple, valuable, non-routine services via the BMIB to the NIDDK community. These services, including magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to measure tissue triglyceride or glycogen content, liver elastography for fibrosis and inflammation, coronary atherosclerosis imaging surrogates, brown adipose tissue quantification, and others, are not otherwise available. These techniques generate clinical research measurements that are key primary and secondary endpoints of numerous clinical studies both ongoing and planned in the NIDDK and other NIH institutes. Furthermore, many of these techniques have become standard measures in respective fields and performing studies without them significantly limits the impact and ability to publish these studies. If the scanner is not working properly, these non-routine research services may not be available. Specifically, if investigators can no longer access these techniques at NIH, approximately 30 studies (from various ICs; (NIDDK), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), National Heart, Lung, Blood and Sleep Research Institute (NHLBI) would fail to reach completion and publication. Should this occur, the investment in the investigator’s success, including financial and investigator resources, as well as the altruism and risk sustained by research subjects, would be wasted. Additionally, loss of current capabilities will drastically reduce the ability to develop new state-of-the-art imaging techniques. Maintaining the 3T Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner will allow the current robust program to remain productive and will allow for significant metabolic imaging advances and improvements. The availability of the Philips 3T scanner is mission critical.

The objective of this requirement is to purchase a service agreement for the maintenance of the NIDDK MRI machine. This contract also provides proactive monitoring and one Preventative Maintenance Service visit, which is crucial for the long-term, successful use of this highly used instrument. 

The service agreement must include the following:

• Priority scheduling for service calls and access to spare parts inventory
• Priority Remote Service response (requires connection to Philips Remote Services network).
• All labor and travel during standard hours of coverage ‐ Mon‐Fri 8am ‐ 9pm, excluding holidays.
• One-hour initial response with four-hour on‐site response.
• All spare and strategic parts that fail during normal use. (If Applicable: X‐Ray Tubes, Image Intensifiers, Detectors, PMT, MMP Package, Surface Coil
• Parts Delivery Earliest Next Day
• Lifecycle Catalogue discount of 20% excluding UPS.
• Equipment Planned Maintenance services per Philips manufacturer specifications performed during standard hours of coverage
• Proprietary operating system software enhancements without hardware changes (excludes software upgrades)
• Unlimited Technical Services (24x7) & Clinical Applications Telephone Support (Mon‐Fri 8am ‐ 9pm)
• Remote Service Support (includes Remote Desktop).
• Remote Proactive Monitoring (requires connection to Philips Remote Services network).
• PSI, Customer Loyalty Meeting (Annually).

This notice is not a request for competitive quotes.  Philips North America LLC is the manufacturer.  However, any available small businesses (e.g., 8(a), service-disabled veteran owned small business, HUBZone small business, small disadvantaged business, veteran-owned small business, and women-owned small business) as stated herein may submit a written capability statement that clearly supports and demonstrates their ability to perform the requirement. A determination by the Government to compete this proposed award based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government.

It is anticipated that an award will be issued approximately five (5) days after the date of this notice unless the Government determines that another organization has the capability to meet this requirement.