H--Testing Capabilities Available to Support the Department of Defense Critical Reagents Program (CRP)

This is a Request for Information (RFI) for planning purposes only. It is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government nor will the Government pay for the information solicited. No solicitation document exists or is guaranteed to be issued as a result of the RFI. The Government solicitation, planned for release in 2013, will have an estimated dollar value of no more than $2M over a two-year period. THERE IS NO SOLICITATION AT THIS TIME. The CRP's mission is to serve as the principle resource of high quality, validated, and standardized biological detection assays and reagents that meet the requirements of the Warfighter and Joint biological defense community by facilitating the transition of new technologies and coordinating their advanced development, efficient production and timely distribution. The CRP supports manufacture, storage and distribution of consumable reagents and end items for the Biological Defense Joint Biological Point Detection System (JBPDS) and the Joint Portal Shield (JPS) System, as well as other assays (e.g. Hand Held Assays [HHA]) and sampling kits (e.g. Biological Sampling Kit [BSK]) used for domestic preparedness, Homeland Defense, counter-terrorist operations and by Other Government Agencies (OGA). The CRP maintains multiple repositories for the storage and distribution of CRP products to supply Government and private test laboratories with antibodies, antigens, and genomics that are used for basic research, assay development and validation. The CRP also manages production of reagents and manufacture of assays to meet the needs of the Defense community. The CRP produces two types of antibody-based assays (i.e. lateral flow immunoassays and electrochemiluminescense assays) for the detection of Category A and B biological warfare agents (BWAs). The CRP also supplies Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) assays for detection BWAs. Together, these products afford front-line Warfighters or First Responders the capability to test environmental samples for the presence of selected BWAs. The Government is interested in receiving information from qualified companies in the following areas: (1) immunoassay and reagent evaluation and testing; (2) product stability and accelerated shelf life testing; (3) immunoassay and reagent evaluation and testing (environmentally controlled; BSL 2); (4) verification testing on lateral flow immunoassays (LFI) including but not limited to sensitivity, false positive reactions, dose response curves, cross-reactivity to near neighbors/battlefield interferents, and physical specification inspection; (5) verification testing on Electrochemiluminescence (ECL) assays including, but not limited to, signal to noise ratio, sensitivity, and false positive ration; (6) verification testing on ECL system reagents including but not limited to pH, appearance, surfactant concentration, physical inspection, conductivity, and hypochlorite testing; (7) testing on ECL positive controls to verify controls perform within acceptable ranges based on conformance criteria; Respondents should supply the Government with a description of their ability to perform any or all of the required capabilities described in this request for information. The Government will retain comments and information received in response to the RFI. Proprietary information should be identified as Company Proprietary. Do not use Government Security classification markings. All written responses should be received by 10 September 2012. Responses should be addressed to the Government Contract Specialist Leo Fratis: contact@example.gov Respondents shall designate a company point-of-contact for the Government. Preferred media is electronic (i.e. Microsoft World, Portable Document Format, or MS Power Point) via email submissions. However, other media types (i.e. CD, printed technical information) will be accepted and should be sent to US Army Contracting Command, ATTN: Leo Fratis, 110 Thomas Johnson Drive, Suite 240, Frederick, MD 21702. Material that is advertisement only in nature is not desired.