INTENT TO SOLE SOURCE

This is a notice of intent to award a sole source contract and is not a request for competitive proposals under the authority of FAR 6.302-1. The government intends to solicit a quote and enter into a purchase order with Olympus America Inc., Center Valley, PA. The Critical Care Medicine Department (CCMD) at National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center (CC), Bethesda, MD, would like to procure maintenance service agreements with Olympus for our EBUS Bronchoscopes. The EBUS bronchoscope is a highly invasive tool critical for obtaining patient specimens from the lung to assist in the diagnosis/treatment of pulmonary diseases. The EBUS bronchoscope maintains the ability to perform needle aspirates and biopsies under ultrasound guidance. In addition, the EBUS bronchoscope utilizes narrow band imaging important for the detection of tissue abnormalities in the lung. Due to the cost of this scope and the potential for damage, it is necessary to maintain these maintenance service agreements with Olympus. During FY 2011, the CCMD has experienced an increase is bronchoscope breakage costing thousands of additional dollars for repairs. Therefore, the CCMD is expanding the maintenance service agreements to include those high usage bronchoscopes not currently under maintenance service agreements. These maintenance service agreements are proprietary as only Olympus-trained service personnel should be allowed to work on this equipment. Olympus technicians are expert in the repair and maintenance of the bronchoscopes. Olympus is the proprietary vendor for all related hardware as well. Olympus is the sole owner and provider of patented and proprietary technology required to accomplish this task. There is no other vendor with the necessary skills that can meet the complexity or specificity required to support the EBUS Bronchoscopes within the needed timeframe of October 2011. No other vendor can support this highly technical bronchoscope other than factory-trained Olympus engineers. Therefore, it is not feasible to obtain full and open competition at this time. The Government shall consider all responses received prior to the close date of this announcement. Written responses to this notice shall contain sufficient documentation to establish bonafide capability to fulfill the requirement. All responses must be received no later than September 28, 2011, 12:00PM, Eastern Standard Time. The proposed award date will be on or before October 1, 2011. Please email Doug Reed, Contract Specialist, at douglas.reed@nih.gov for questions pertaining to this notice. No phone calls please.