Jackson Laboratory

Jackson Laboratory, a tax-exempt nonprofit biomedical research institution, delivers genetically engineered mouse models, induced pluripotent stem cell lines, and associated research animal husbandry services to the federal government as a prime contractor and recipient across the National Institutes of Health and Defense Health Agency. The organization operates on a full-and-open competitive basis across all sectors—no set-aside posture applies—and competes on scientific capability and specialized capacity rather than business size classifications. Headquartered in Bar Harbor, Maine, with satellite facilities in Farmington, Connecticut, and Bethesda, Maryland, Jackson Laboratory pursues research infrastructure work under primary NAICS 119210 (All Other Animal Production) and also engages in biotechnology research and development.

Jackson Laboratory's capability portfolio centers on the production, maintenance, cryopreservation, and distribution of specialized laboratory mice for disease modeling and translational research. Recent representative prime work includes a $3.75 million cost-no-fee definitive contract awarded September 25, 2026, by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to produce and distribute aneuploid mice modeling Down syndrome (trisomy 21) through 2031, with a requirement to maintain at least 30 breeding pairs per strain and supply approximately 1,200 to 2,400 mice annually, 75 to 80 percent distributed free to eligible researchers. A $3.35 million firm fixed-price purchase order from the National Institute on Aging awarded September 1, 2026, covers validation and optimization of one-step tagging in human iPSCs supporting the iPSC Neurodegenerative Disease Initiative under a sole-source justification citing Jackson Laboratory as the only known source capable of maintaining scientific continuity with prior NIA-funded engineering programs. A $6.0 million definitive contract from the National Institute on Aging supports iPSC engineering services. Jackson Laboratory also executes a $146.3 million single-award IDIQ with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases through July 2031 for pre-clinical models of infectious diseases; this vehicle anchors the organization's federal portfolio and has generated 29 task orders to date.

Customer concentration is highly diffuse across the NIH institute portfolio. The top five customer agencies by award count account for 22% of awards: the Office of the Director leads with 197 awards ($18.8 million potential value), followed by the NIH Office of Logistics and Acquisition Operations (172 awards, $163.5 million), the National Institute on Aging (97 awards, $15.6 million), and others. By potential value, the picture shifts—the NIH Office of Logistics and Acquisition Operations ($163.5 million), the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases ($147.8 million), and the Defense Health Agency ($60.5 million) dominate the top tier. Jackson Laboratory has worked with 76 distinct federal agencies across the past five years, reflecting its status as a critical shared biomedical research resource.

Jackson Laboratory holds or participates in multiple indefinite-delivery vehicles. A $146.3 million single-award IDIQ with NIAID for pre-clinical infectious disease models runs through July 2031. A $35 million multiple-award Blanket Purchase Agreement with the Defense Health Agency covers small laboratory research animals through July 2030. A $4.5 million single-award IDIQ with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences for barrier-reared rodents extends through June 2029. A $3.75 million definitive contract from NICHD for Down syndrome mouse models and a $3.35 million purchase order from NIA for iPSC engineering represent recent direct awards outside the IDIQ framework. These vehicles reflect Jackson Laboratory's role as a critical infrastructure provider for federal biomedical research across multiple institutes and agencies.

Activity has remained robust and steady. Over the past five years, Jackson Laboratory has received 46 awards in 2022, 72 in 2023, 99 in 2024, 57 in 2025, and 45 through mid-October 2026, reflecting consistent demand but a recent moderation in FY2025–FY2026 relative to the FY2024 peak. A combined potential value of $631.8 million across all 3,168 awards places the organization among the largest federal biomedical research suppliers. However, 69 awards with combined potential value of $4.2 million face ultimate completion within the next 24 months and will require recompete.

SCI-reportable invoicing on service contracts above the $150,000 threshold totaled $10.4 million over FY2022–FY2025 ($2.1 million FY2022, $3.2 million FY2023, $4.1 million FY2024, $1.1 million FY2025), reflecting the subset of Jackson Laboratory's contract work that meets SCI reporting criteria. The SCI dataset shows roughly 9.0 FTEs in FY2022 growing to 13.5 FTEs in FY2025, indicating modest workforce expansion on federally reportable service contracts. On federal services work captured in SCI, government-paid hourly rates ranged from a 10th percentile of $108.26/hr to a median of $131.33/hr and 90th percentile of $197.67/hr—positioning Jackson Laboratory in the upper-mid range for specialized research animal and biomedical research services.

Jackson Laboratory operates as a prime on 95% of its federal awards (3,017 of 3,168) and builds its own delivery teams rather than relying on subcontractors; across SCI-reportable prime contracts, subcontractors performed 0% of total contractor hours. Subcontract engagement is minimal. Named federal grant recipients include Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (Alzheimer's disease research), University of Connecticut Health Center (leukemogenesis, neurodegenerative disease, and genomic stability studies), Brigham and Women's Hospital (hematopoietic stem cell research), Emory University (vaccine immunogenicity and TREAT-AD consortium activities), and numerous other academic and research institutions serving as sub-recipients on cooperative agreements and collaborative research grants. Jackson Laboratory also serves as a sub-contractor to Axle Informatics on a DECORPORATION MCM Phase 1 clinical safety study and to Boston University on CARB-X global antibacterial accelerator research. The sub-recipient footprint reflects Jackson Laboratory's role as a supplier of specialized research animals, genomic capabilities, and cell engineering services embedded within multi-site research consortia rather than as an orchestrating prime on large integrator-style programs.

Federal grant work spans the National Institutes of Health institutes (National Institute on Aging, National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, National Institute of General Medical Sciences, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Eye Institute, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Office of the Director), the National Science Foundation Division of Biological Infrastructure, and the Defense Health Agency. Representative recent grants include a $506 thousand Aging Research award from NIA to develop an age-stratified human gut-on-chip model integrating organoid-derived epithelia and patient microbiomes (performance in Farmington, Connecticut, through August 2028); a $452 thousand Cancer Biology Research award from NCI to advance and validate single-cell long-read sequencing for cancer molecular profiling (July 31, 2029); a $932 thousand cooperative agreement from NIAID on trained immunity signatures and epigenetic remodeling of hematopoietic stem cells in older vaccine responders (May 31, 2031); a $1.89 million award from the Defense Health Agency for spatial transcriptomic and proteomic shifts in tumor-infiltrating immunocytes and melanoma therapeutics (July 31, 2028); and a $5.95 million collaborative research grant from NINDS on cerebral amyloid angiopathy and vascular contributions to cognitive impairment and dementia, with sub-recipients at Emory University, Rush University Medical Center, and Columbia University (August 31, 2027). Congressionally directed spending for the Rare Disease Translational Research Center construction has totaled approximately $500 thousand to $1 million across multiple awards (September 2023–September 2024).

Jackson Laboratory competes predominantly on full-and-open basis and holds no SBA set-aside designations; its nonprofit status and specialized scientific capacity position it outside set-aside categories. The organization maintains no formal parent contract vehicles as a subcontractor to larger primes in the traditional sense; instead, it sits as a critical scientific infrastructure provider within multi-PI research consortia (MODEL-AD, TREAT-AD, SenNet, Alliance of Genome Resources, MORPHIC), where it often leads data analysis, bioinformatics, or animal model development cores while remaining a prime recipient on its own grants. This positioning reflects Jackson Laboratory's role as a foundational research resource rather than as a subordinate component of larger program integrators.