NINDS Investor Forum

Description: "This is a Small Business Sources Sought notice. This is NOT a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts, or quotations. The purpose of this notice is to obtain information regarding: (1) the availability and capability of qualified small business sources; (2) whether they are small businesses; HUBZone small businesses; service-disabled, veteran-owned small businesses; 8(a) small businesses; veteran-owned small businesses; woman-owned small businesses; or small disadvantaged businesses; and (3) their size classification relative to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for the proposed acquisition. Your responses to the information requested will assist the Government in determining the appropriate acquisition method, including whether a set-aside is possible. An organization that is not considered a small business under the applicable NAICS code should not submit a response to this notice." Background: The mission of National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes (NINDS) is to seek fundamental knowledge about the brain and nervous system and to use that knowledge to reduce the burden of neurological disease. This entails bringing novel therapeutics, diagnostics, and other technologies to patients who need them. While NINDS supports research on these products through various grant and contract mechanisms, the products need additional support through final stages of development and commercialization beyond what NINDS can provide. National Institute of Health (NIH) grantees who are developing promising new products must establish effective partnerships to secure additional funding, expertise, and resources for their products to reach patients. Building the foundation for these partnerships can easily take several years and is best initiated early during the research stages typically supported by NINDS. With the goal of enabling grantees to find partnerships, NINDS will select promising products from the grantee pool, help them with their business proposals, and host a forum to allow them to present their proposals to potential business partners. A contractor will be required to assist with the above. The forum will be a full day of sessions that are part of the Neurotech Investing and Partnering Conference in April or May, 2015 in San Francisco. This annual conference is a global forum where investors, executives, entrepreneurs, scientists and others involved in the development of new treatments and diagnostics for the brain and nervous system come together. Purpose and Objectives: The short-term goals of the forum will be to provide the participants a venue to present, meet, and network with leading neuroscience investors and pharmaceutical industry representatives. The efforts leading up to the forum will also provide the opportunity to receive mentorship from veteran investment professionals on how to prepare a business presentation. The participants will present on the day of the forum; receive feedback from investment leaders in the field to help improve their projects; and network with other investigators and potential partners. Upon leaving the forum, participating investigators will not only have made networking connections and learned valuable information, but will have a draft business plan in hand to facilitate their moving forward in a practical and meaningful way. The long-term goal is to form partnerships between grantees and those who can provide development and commercialization support of their technologies. Project requirements: The following is a list of tasks to be performed by the contractor: 1. Event Planning & Administration - Lead planning of the event and provide logistics support on day of event; provide online registration - Develop meeting agenda; hold meetings leading up to the event and any necessary follow-on meetings, and draft and distribute meeting minutes - Recruit and confirm speakers and manage logistics, including speaker prep calls. - MC program on day of event - Manage project tracker, setting timelines, deliverables and task reminders - Manage document sharing and version control via online shared folders - Venue Management and logistics o Manage all venue and site coordination including market research, selection, reservation, and booking o Provide necessary audio/visual equipment and network access to enable live webcasting of the event to at least 150 remote participants. - Provide a framework to facilitate partnering meetings between event participants, either on the day of the event or soon thereafter 2. Budget - Create and manage event budget, and provide reports as needed 3. Screening, Company Selection, and Mentoring - Assist with outreach to grantees, recruitment of applicants, applicant communications and messaging - Develop application materials - Coordinate applicant screening process (about 200 applicants) - Recruit and confirm industry screeners and match applicants to appropriate screeners - Convene and facilitate company selection activities - Recruit relevant industry mentors for grantees (about 15-30) and manage mentoring of grantees by industry mentors 4. Marketing - Create and implement marketing plan - Draft content for online and offline marketing collateral - Market the event to potential attendees, including outreach to investors and inviting targeted investors - Leverage network for optimal attendance - Assist with the creation and distribution of online and offline marketing collateral - Create and implement of social media strategy - Secure industry collaborators that will market event to their community Anticipated period of performance: The anticipated period of performance is one year beginning June/July 2014 through June/July 2015. Other important considerations: Cite any other information that is necessary for potential respondents to understand the nature of the potential requirement or proposed acquisition. Capability statement /information sought. Respondents to this notice must provide, as part of their response a capability statement that includes: (1) the respondents' opinions about the difficulty and/or feasibility of the potential requirement or proposed acquisition, possible solutions and approaches that may currently exist in the marketplace, and information regarding innovative ideas or concepts; (2) information regarding respondents prior experience and past performance on experience providing similar services in the past. Response must include demonstrated expertise and experience in executing and managing similar training, business mentoring, investor relations, and event planning. Specific examples of mentoring services must be provided and the specific forums of this nature arranged including relevant references; (3) information on the proposed key personnel combination of advanced education, board certifications, and other advanced expertise explicitly applicable to the project tasks; (4) information on the management capability of the respondent ability to manage a project of this type and magnitude; (5) information on respondents industry connections providing evidence that connections can be leveraged for the purposes of selecting grantees to present, coaching the grantees to present, and getting investor/partners to attend the meeting; and (6) any other information that may be helpful in determining the respondents capability and or developing or finalizing the acquisition requirements. The respondent must also provide their DUNS number, organization name, address, point of contact, and size and type of business (e.g., 8(a), HubZone, etc.) pursuant to the applicable NAICS code and any other information that may be helpful in developing or finalizing the acquisition requirements. One (1) copy of the response is required and must be in Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF format using 11-point or 12-point font, 8-1/2" x 11" paper size, with 1" top, bottom, left and right margins, and with single or double spacing. The information submitted must be must be in and outline format that addresses each of the elements of the project requirement and in the capability statement /information sought paragraphs stated herein. A cover page and an executive summary may be included but is not required. The response is limited to ten (10) page limit. The 10-page limit does not include the cover page, executive summary, or references, if requested. The response must include the respondents' technical and administrative points of contact, including names, titles, addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail addresses. All responses to this notice must be submitted electronically to the Contract Specialist and Contracting Officer. Facsimile responses are NOT accepted. The response must be submitted to Debra C. Hawkins, Contracting Officer, at e-mail address debra.hawkins@nih.gov. The response must be received on or before April 11, 2014, 12:00 noon, eastern time. "Disclaimer and Important Notes: This notice does not obligate the Government to award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in response. The Government reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate. Any organization responding to this notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed to allow the Government to determine the organization's qualifications to perform the work. Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. After a review of the responses received, a presolicitation synopsis and solicitation may be published in Federal Business Opportunities. However, responses to this notice will not be considered adequate responses to a solicitation. Confidentiality: No proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your response. The Government reserves the right to use any non-proprietary technical information in any resultant solicitation(s)."