Preclinical Medications Screening in Dependence Models

This notice is related to two (2) sources sought notices NIAAA-SSN-2014-PNH, released 12/18/2012 and NIAAA-SSN-2014-02-PNH, released 11/08/2013. This acquisition is a full and open competition. This notice is issued on behalf of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), Office of Acquisitions, NIH, DHHS. This is a Pre-solicitation Notice in advance of the Request for Proposals (RFP). The Government is not committed to award a contract pursuant to this announcement. The RFP, NIH-NIAAA-2014-02, detailing the specifics of the project, as well as information pertinent to the development of an Offeror's proposal, will be available electronically within 14 calendar days of this notice and may be accessed through the Internet on the Federal Business Opportunities website: http://www.fedbizopps.gov. No paper solicitation is available. Potential Offerors are responsible for downloading the solicitation and for routinely checking the site for any solicitation amendments issued by the Government. Proposals will be due on or about March 12, 2014. It is anticipated that one cost-reimbursement contract award will be made for a period of five years (i.e. one 12-month base period plus four 12-month options) beginning on or about July 1, 2014. This is a Research and Development contract initiative entitled Preclinical Medications Screening in Dependence Models. This is not an NIH grant opportunity. The NIAAA seeks a contractor to address the present and anticipated future needs of NIAAA's Medications Development Program. The Division of Neuroscience and Behavior's (DNB) Preclinical Medication Efficacy Testing Program seeks to re-compete a contract for the blind testing of reference compounds and proprietary compounds on alcohol drinking in mice using models of various aspects of alcohol dependence. The contract will use mechanisms having intellectual property conditions favorable to compound providers. This will eliminate a major barrier to testing optimized compounds having preclinical, as well as clinical toxicology data, and will stimulate interest by the pharmaceutical industry in developing high quality, marketable compounds for alcoholism. Overall, the contractor will assess effects of proprietary compounds in standardized models of alcohol dependence-induced alcohol intake using mice for subjects. Specifically, the contractor will be required to test effects of compounds submitted to them by NIAAA staff members in voluntary limited-access 2 bottle choice drinking of unsweetened ethanol solutions in mice made dependent through repeated cycles of ethanol vapor exposure and withdrawal. The contractor will also develop and implement testing of proprietary compounds in additional mouse models, which may include drinking in the dark (DID), intermittent access drinking model, alcohol deprivation model (ADE), and conditioned place preference (CPP) models. The contractor will also collect, analyze and display data from these tests and report them to designated NIAAA personnel. The data generated by this contract will be used in the identification of compounds for further development. All qualified organizations are encouraged to respond with a contract proposal.