The National Institute of Environmental Health Science (NIEHS) intends to award a Purchase Order to Illumina, Inc. at 5200 Illumina Way, San Diego, CA 92122-4616, for the purchase of a TruSeq Custom Amplicon (TSCA) panel, to be used at the NIEHS, Research Triangle Park campus. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code is 424210 "Drugs and Druggists' Sundries Merchant Wholesalers" with a size standard of 250 employees. NO SOLICITATION OR REQUEST FOR QUOTE (RFQ) IS AVAILABLE. It has been determined that Illumina, Inc. is the only known responsible source capable of providing the required supplies and no other supplies will satisfy the agency's requirements. The purpose of this acquisition is to obtain a TruSeq Custom Amplicon (TSCA) panel, a fully customizable, amplicon-based assay for targeted resquencing. This panel is essential to elucidate the genetic alterations in rat brain tumors and compare them to the common genetic alterations in human brain tumors. The TruSeq Custom Amplicon (TSCA) panel will be used to enrich the "hot-spot" regions that are relevant in human brain tumors. The enriched and amplified DNA will be run on the Illumina sequencers located within the NIEHS epigenomics core. This is especially important when multiplexing several samples in the same run since the Illumina adapters/indices are already built into the Illumina software run on the machines in the NIEHS epigenomics core. Illumina, Inc. manufacturers and supports this highly specialized, and unique custom service that delivers a reliable and optimized product suited to the NIEH's needs. In addition, based on the program office's survey of the sources in the market, Illumina not only provides this custom designed panel, but it also is the only vendor to provide a bioinformatics platform for data analysis. This highly specialized product/service can be custom designed to be optimally run on existing machines (Illumina's MiSeq or NextSeq500) within the NIEHS epigenomics core. This is highly significant due to the already built-in adapters/indices information in the Illumina software that would enable multiplexing several samples in a single run which in turn optimizes resources in the NIEHS epigenomics core. This notice of intent is not a solicitation or request for quotes. Notwithstanding, any firm that believes it is capable of meeting NIEHS' requirement, as stated herein, may submit their corporate capabilities, which, if received by the response date of this announcement, may be considered. Responses to this posting must be in writing and shall be emailed to
[email protected] and are due by the listed due date and time. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed contract based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Information received will be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement in the future.