HEALTH CANADA ADVANCE CONTRACT AWARD NOTICE
TITLE: Maternal-Infant Research on Environmental Chemicals (MIREC) – Maintaining and Supporting MIREC Research Platform Infrastructure
SOLICITATION NUMBER: 1000173697
1. The purpose and explanation of an ACAN
An Advance Contract Award Notice (ACAN) allows Health Canada contracting authorities to post a notice on the Government Electronic Tendering System (GETS), for no less than fifteen (15) calendar days, indicating to the supplier community that a good, service or construction contract will be awarded to a pre-identified contractor. If no other supplier submits, on or before the closing date, a Statement of Capabilities that meets the requirements set out in the ACAN, the contracting authority may then proceed with the award. However, should a Statement of Capabilities be found to meet the requirements set out in the ACAN, then the contracting authority will proceed to a full tendering process.
2. Rights of suppliers
Suppliers who believe that they are fully qualified and available to provide the services or goods described in this ACAN may submit a Statement of Capabilities clearly demonstrating how they meet the advertised requirement. This Statement of Capabilities must be provided via e-mail only to the contact person identified in Section 12 of the Notice on or before the closing date and time of the Notice. If there is a reasonable level of evidence regarding capability, the requirements will be opened to electronic or traditional bidding processes.
3. Proposed Contractor
Centre hospitalier universitaire Sainte-Justine
3175 Chemin Côté Ste Catherine
Montréal, Québec J3T 1C5
4. Definition of Requirements or Expected Results
The Maternal-Infant Research on Environmental Chemicals (MIREC) Research Platform was started in the 2007 with the initiation of the original MIREC Study: a national-level multi-year research study that recruited approximately 2,000 pregnant women from ten cities across Canada. The last MIREC baby was born in the fall of 2011. MIREC has the most extensive biomonitoring data on environmental chemicals for pregnant women in Canada and is a collaborative effort among Health Canada scientists, the Sainte-Justine Hospital in Montreal, and clinical and academic researchers across Canada. Another key component of the MIREC Research Platform is the MIREC Biobank. The Biobank is the repository for both the electronic data collected from all aspects of the MIREC Research Platform and additional biospecimens (maternal urine and blood, umbilical cord blood, infant first stools, breast milk, neonatal dried blood spots, maternal hair and child blood and urine) that are available for future research on the health of the mothers and their children. This future research could include measuring new environmental chemicals, markers of disease, or markers of susceptibility to disease.
Given the major investment in the MIREC Research Platform by the Government of Canada, its academic and clinical partners and Canadian families, it is critical that this unique, extremely valuable and complex resource be maintained to enable forthcoming analysis of the already collected data and biospecimens and further contacts with MIREC families to invite their participation in new research.
The proposed work supports the MIREC Research Platform infrastructure by:
- retaining the experienced coordinating center MIREC staff and key staff in the MIREC recruitment sites (e.g., Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Sudbury, Ottawa, Kingston, Toronto, Hamilton, Montreal and Halifax);
- maintaining the MIREC freezers and biospecimens and micro-aliquotting biospecimens as needed;
- maintaining the MIREC datasets on secure servers;
- maintaining contact and interest with MIREC participating families;
- providing storage for study materials, questionnaires and equipment used in the MIREC Research Platform studies.
Maintaining this unique and valuable resource will allow the conduct of future research to assess the impacts that fetal, early-life and childhood exposures have on child development and early onset chronic disease.
CHU Sainte-Justine has acted as the study coordinating center for the MIREC Research Platform and is the only research group with the unique blend of technical expertise, knowledge and experience to meet the technological requirements needed to support the MIREC infrastructure.
5. Minimum requirements
Any interested supplier must demonstrate by way of a Statement of Capabilities that it meets the following minimum requirements:
i) Access to and extensive knowledge of the study population and data collected from the trans-Canada MIREC Research Platform is required. This includes the MIREC Study, the various follow-up studies of mothers and children and the MIREC Biobank.
ii) The supplier must be able to establish research collaborative relationships with 10 clinical recruitment sites across Canada that were part of the MIREC Study (Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Sudbury, Ottawa, Kingston, Toronto, Hamilton, Montreal and Halifax) for the recruitment of 2,000 women in the first trimester of pregnancy. Because CHU Sainte-Justine was the study coordinating center for the MIREC Study, they are the only contractor with the electronic data and most of the personal identifiers collected from the MIREC Research Platform.
iii) The supplier must have access to the MIREC Biobank. CHU Sainte-Justine owns the MIREC Biobank. The biospecimens held in the Biobank cannot be moved. The cost of moving the biospecimens to a facility with the experienced staff and all the same telecommunications and computer equipment, materials, freezers and associated alarm systems, security, software and space would be prohibitive, if not greater than the value of the proposed contract. Moving the more than 100,000 biospecimens would also increase the likelihood that the samples would be lost or damaged. It is likely that additional specimens will be added to the MIREC Biobank as part of future research.
iv) The necessary experienced staff with knowledge of the history of the MIREC Research Platform and telecommunications and computer equipment, materials, software and space to plan, develop or modify survey instruments, conduct training, manage and statistically analyse the data collected and communicate the scientific results in peer-reviewed journals.
v) A proven track record in supporting and conducting multi-site clinical research studies as proven by an extensive publication record. The CHU Sainte-Justine research team and network has both expertise in clinical research, child development and environmental exposure studies necessary for the current study.
6. Reason for non-competitive award
Section 6 of the Government Contracts Regulations contains four exceptions that permit the contracting authority to set aside the requirement to solicit bids. For the proposed procurement, the following exception applies:
(d) Only One Person or Firm is capable of performing the contract.
CHU Sainte-Justine is the only institute that meets all of the minimum requirements. CHU Sainte-Justine owns the MIREC Biobank
7. Applicable trade agreements and justification for limited tendering or the Procurement Strategy for Aboriginal Business
This contract is a health study and therefore is not subject to either the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) or World Trade Organization - Agreement on Government Procurement (WTO-GPA). It is however subject to the Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT). This requirement is subject to limited tendering procedures in accordance with:
which allows for contracts to be directed to a particular firm when the products or services can be supplied only by a particular supplier and no reasonable alternative or substitute exists.
8. Ownership of Intellectual Property
Copyright shall vest with the Contractor, although the Contractor shall grant the Crown a license to exercise all Intellectual Property Rights in the Materiel for any public purpose.
9. Period of the proposed contract
The contract period shall be from date of contract award until June 30th, 2016.
10. Estimated value of the proposed contract
The estimated value of the proposed contract is $266,128.00, including all applicable taxes. However, this contract will have four (4) option years built into it, dependent upon the availability of funding, worth a combined total of $845,706.00, making the total potential value of this contract over five years $1,111,834.00
11. Closing date and time
The closing date and time for accepting Statements of Capabilities is the 24th of July 2015, 2 p.m. EDT).
12. Contact Person
All inquiries with regard to this Notice must be addressed by e-mail to:
Name: Robert Merrick
E-Mail: R••••••••@•••••.••.ca
