Recombinant Human Protein, COMT, PNMT, Ub-AML

(i) This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items prepared in accordance with the format in Subpart 12.6 as supplemented with additional information included in this notice. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation; proposals are being requested and a written solicitation will not be issued.

(ii) The solicitation number is 75N95019Q00123 and the solicitation is issued as a Request for Quotation (RFQ) on a Full and Open competitive basis. This acquisition is for a commercial item or service and is conducted under the authority of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 13-Simplified Acquisition Procedures; FAR Subpart 13.5-Test Program for Certain Commercial Items; and FAR Part 12-Acquisition of Commercial Items. This acquisition is NOT expected to exceed the simplified acquisition threshold of $250,000.00. A Fixed-Price type of contract is contemplated for any resulting contract entered into as a result of this solicitation.

(iii) The solicitation document and incorporated provisions and clauses are those in effect through Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Federal Acquisition Circular (FAC) Number/Effective Date: 2019-01 / 01-22-2019.

(iv) The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this procurement is 325413 In-Vitro Diagnostic Substance Manufacturing with size standard 1250 employees. This requirement is restricted on a Total Small Business set-aside basis.

(v) This requirement is for the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NCATS Chemical Genomics Center (NCGC) is tasked with identifying and developing novel small molecule leads against a wide spectrum of human disease targets, which it accomplishes by screening thousands of small molecules in collaboration with both intra-and extramural researchers. In pursuit of this goal, the Center has a strong internal transdisciplinary team of scientists who continually discover novel small molecules for application against a wide range of human diseases.

NCGC regularly screens its small molecule library collections against different enzymes that are implicated in development of diseases. Target class profiling is a screening approach that characterizes a set of enzymes with functional similarities to improve the efficiency of lead compound identification. In this case, Catechol O-Methyltransferase (COMT) and Phenylethanolamine N-Methyltransferase (PNMT), are two methyltransferases which accept similar substrates in metabolic pathways but produce differing biological outcomes. This makes them suitable candidates to being target class profiling studies of the natural product methyltransferases. The COMT and PNMR supply obtained through this requirement shall be rigorously tested for purity and activity by the vendor to confirm robustness and activity internally. This requirement is essential to several ongoing projects at NCGC including, but not limited to, target class profiling of methyltransferases and new High-Throughput Screening (HTS) assay development.

(vi) The purpose of this requirement is to obtain the following supply:
1. Phenylethanolamine N-Methyltransferase (PNMT) Protein, CF 0.5 mg, 1 each
2. Catechol O-Methyltransferase (COMT) Protein, CF 0.5 mg, 1 each
3. Recombinant Human Ubiquitin Rhodamine 110 Protein, CF (Ub-AML) 4 mg, 1 each

Products offered must include those salient physical, functional, or other characteristics that are deemed essential in meeting the government's needs. Specifically, the following features are deemed essential that this requirement shall achieve:
1. PNMT, COMT, and Ub-AML must come from the same vendor to guarantee comparability.
2. Permits High signal and detection for our HTS applications.
3. Expressed in E. coli, PNMT aa (1-282) with a C-terminal His tag, COMT aa(52-271) with a C-terminal His tag.
4. Quality control tested for Concentration, Purity, Endotoxin, and Activity.

Offerors must: 1) include Shipping and handling cost in the quotation or specify if it is included in the price; 2) indicate if items being quoted are warrantied, as applicable, in accordance with their standard commercial warranty practices, and the length of time of such warranty; 3) indicate an estimated delivery time in full after receipt of an order.

(vii) The Government anticipates award of a firm fixed-price purchase order for this acquisition, and the anticipated delivery date is 10 weeks after receipt of order (ARO) and will be determined prior to any award. Delivery will be FOB destination. The place of delivery and acceptance will be 9800 Medical Center Drive, Rockville, MD 20850.

(viii) The provision at FAR 52.252-1, Solicitation Provisions Incorporated by Reference (Feb 1998), applies to this acquisition. This solicitation incorporates one or more solicitation provisions by reference, with the same force and effect as if they were given in full text. Upon request, the Contracting Officer will make their full text available. The offeror is cautioned that the listed provisions may include blocks that must be completed by the offeror and submitted with its quotation or offer. In lieu of submitting the full text of those provisions, the offeror may identify the provision by paragraph identifier and provide the appropriate information with its quotation or offer. Also, the full text of a solicitation provision may be accessed electronically at these addresses: https://www.acquisition.gov/browse/index/far https://www.hhs.gov/grants/contracts/contract-policies-regulations/hhsar/index.html

(End of provision)

The following provisions apply to this acquisition and are incorporated by reference:
• FAR 52.204-7, System for Award Management (Oct 2018)
• FAR 52.204-16, Commercial and Government Entity Code Reporting (Jul 2016)
• FAR 52.211-6, Brand Name or Equal (Aug 1999)
• FAR 52.212-1, Instructions to Offerors-Commercial Items (Oct 2018)
• FAR 52.212-3, Offeror Representations and Certifications-Commercial Items (Oct 2018)
• HHSAR 352.239-73, Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Notice (December 18, 2015)

The clause at FAR 52.252-2, Clauses Incorporated by Reference (Feb 1998), applies to this acquisition. This contract incorporates one or more clauses by reference, with the same force and effect as if they were given in full text. Upon request, the Contracting Officer will make their full text available. Also, the full text of a clause may be accessed electronically at these addresses:
https://www.acquisition.gov/browse/index/far https://www.hhs.gov/grants/contracts/contract-policies-regulations/hhsar/index.html

(End of clause)

The following clauses apply to this acquisition and are incorporated by reference:
• FAR 52.204-13, System for Award Management Maintenance (Oct 2018)
• FAR 52.204-18, Commercial and Government Entity Code Maintenance (Jul 2016)
• FAR 52.212-4, Contract Terms and Conditions--Commercial Items (Oct 2018).

The provisions of FAR clause at 52.212-5, Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes or Executive Orders-Commercial Items (OCT 2018) is applicable to this solicitation:
52.222-3 Convict Labor (June 2003)
52.222-19 Child Labor-Cooperation With Authorities and Remedies (Jan 2018)
52.222-21 Prohibition of Segregated Facilities (Apr 2015)
52.222-26 Equal Opportunity (Sep 2016)
52.222-36 Equal Opportunity for Workers with Disabilities (Jul 2014)
52.222-50 Combating Trafficking in Persons (Jan 2019)
52.223-18 Encouraging Contractor Policies to Ban Text Messaging While Driving (Aug 2011)
52.225-13 Restriction on Certain Foreign Purchases (Jun 2008)
52.232-33 Payment by Electronic Funds Transfer-- System for Award Management (Oct 2018)

The following provisions and clauses apply to this acquisition and are incorporated as an attachment:
• NIH Invoice and Payment Provisions (2/2014)

(ix) The provision at FAR clause 52.212-2, Evaluation - Commercial Items, applies to this acquisition. The following is an addendum to 52.212-2: Responses received to this RFQ will be evaluated on a Trade-Off basis. The award will be made on a competitive best value basis, using "tradeoff" among price-cost and non-price-cost factors. The Government may elect to award to other than the lowest priced offeror, or other than the offeror with the highest rated non-price-cost proposal. In either case, a tradeoff will be conducted. The government reserves such right of flexibility in conducting the evaluation as necessary to assure an award with the contractor providing the best value to the government. Although technical factors are of paramount consideration in the award, cost or price is also important to the overall award decision. All evaluation factors other than cost or price, when combined, are significantly more important than cost or price. However, cost or price may become a critical factor in source selection in the event two or more offerors are determined to be essentially equal following the evaluation of all factors other than cost or price.

Each quotation will be evaluated in strict conformity with the evaluation factors, utilizing written critiques. The evaluation will be based upon the demonstrated capabilities of the prospective contractor in relation to the needs of the project as set forth in the RFQ and will use an adjectival evaluation rating scheme based on the following responses:
Excellent (Risk level: Very low); Good (Risk level: Low); Acceptable (Risk Level: Neutral); Marginal (Risk level: High); Unacceptable (Risk level: Very high).

The following factors shall be used to evaluate offers, listed in order of relative importance: 1.) Professional Expertise; 2.) Technical Approach. Professional Expertise: The offeror must demonstrate their knowledge, qualifications and professional experience as it correlates to the experience outlined in this requirement; Proposal clearly detail offerors' relevant experience and knowledge of the requirement as described in this requirement. Technical Approach: The offeror must demonstrate an understanding of the work, including creativity and thoroughness shown in understanding the objectives of the work and specific tasks, planned execution of the project, ability to address anticipated potential problem areas, and creativity and feasibility of solutions to problems and future integration of new processes.

Offeror's submitting a response must provide a completed Price Quote to be evaluated and considered for award. Price quotes must indicate fixed unit pricing and total cost, including shipping cost and estimated time of delivery after receipt of order if applicable. Prices shall be quoted on an itemized basis with fixed-price pricing structure included for all work to be performed in accomplishing this requirement.

(x) The Offerors to include a completed copy of the provision at FAR clause 52.212-3, Offeror Representations and Certifications-Commercial Items, with its offer.

(xi) The clause at FAR 52.212-4, Contract Terms and Conditions-Commercial Items, applies to this acquisition.

(xii) The clause at FAR 52.212-5, Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes or Executive Orders-Commercial Items, applies to this acquisition and is incorporated in full text.

(xiii) The following additional contract requirement(s) or terms and conditions as determined by the contracting officer are necessary for this acquisition and consistent with customary commercial practices. There are no additional contract requirement(s) or terms and conditions applicable to this acquisition.

(xiv) The Defense Priorities and Allocations System (DPAS) are not applicable to this requirement.

(xv) Responses to this solicitation must include sufficient information to establish the interested parties' bona-fide capabilities of providing the product or service. The price quote shall include: unit price, list price, shipping and handling costs, delivery days after contract award, delivery terms, prompt payment discount terms, F.O.B. Point (Destination or Origin), product or catalog number(s), product description, and any other information or factors that may be considered in the award decision. Such factors may include: past performance, special features required for effective program performance, trade-in considerations, probable life of the item selected as compared with that of a comparable item, warranty considerations, maintenance availability, and environmental and energy efficiency considerations.

The Dun & Bradstreet Number (DUNS), the Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), and the certification of business size must be included in the response. All offerors must have an active registration in the System for Award Management (SAM) www.sam.gov.

(xvi) All responses must be received no later than the date specified in this announcement. Late responses will not be accepted. All responses must reference the subject solicitation number. Responses must be submitted electronically to hunter.tjugum@nih.gov. Facsimile responses will not be accepted. For information regarding this solicitation, contact Hunter Tjugum by email at hunter.tjugum@nih.gov or by phone at 301-827-5304.

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