IMS PharmaQuery

1. 	The purpose and explanation of an ACAN

 An Advance Contract Award Notice (ACAN) allows the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB) contracting authorities to post a notice on MERX, for no less than fifteen (15) calendar days, indicating to the supplier community that a good, service or construction contract will be awarded to a pre-identified contractor. If no other supplier submits, on or before the closing date, a Statement of Capabilities that meets the requirements set out in the ACAN, the contracting authority may then proceed with the award. However, should a Statement of Capabilities be found to meet the requirements set out in the ACAN, then the contracting authority will proceed to a full tendering process.



2.	Rights of suppliers

Suppliers who consider themselves fully qualified and available to provide the services or goods described in this ACAN may submit a Statement of Capabilities demonstrating how they meet the advertised requirement. This Statement of Capabilities must be provided via e-mail only to the contact person identified in Section 12 of the Notice, on or before the closing date and time of the Notice. If there is a reasonable level of evidence regarding capability the requirement will be opened to electronic or traditional bidding processes.


3.	Proposed Contractor

IMSWorld Publication Ltd.  Service Provided by IMS Health
210 Pentonville Road,
London N1 9JY, England

4.	Definition of Requirements or Expected Results

The PMPRB gathers intelligence on international pricing and reimbursement regimes/policies and trends to carry out its price review process, develop strategic advice and report on national and international trends.  To perform these functions, the PMPRB needs to invest considerable resources both internally and externally to gathering and analyzing the best available information on global pricing and reimbursement of pharmaceuticals.

The contractor will provide:
•	Detailed coverage of the changing pricing & reimbursement (P&R)  landscape in 31 key world markets: 
Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, UK and USA. 

•	Weekly news updates by a team of international pricing & reimbursement experts, fully sourced and linked to primary and secondary information sources, and personal contacts. 
•	Thought Leadership articles/White Papers, providing unique perspectives and insights from IMS into P&R issues. 
•	Novel and consistent methodology to aid international comparisons; enhanced by the availability of tabular reports to assist in benchmarking activities.
•	 Advanced search tools and hyperlinks to enable rigorous database interrogation. 

Pricing & Reimbursement Systems: A comprehensive database of healthcare systems in key world markets, including detailed pricing and reimbursement regulations, updated quarterly on a rolling basis. 
Chapters and Headings are as follows: 
•	Healthcare System (Facts & Figures, Provision & Funding) 
•	Pricing (Prescription Drugs, Generic Drugs, Hospital Drugs, OTC Drugs)
•	Reimbursement (Admission to Reimbursement, Reimbursement Categories, Reimbursement Prices, Hospital Reimbursement, Changes in Reimbursement Status, Changes in Reimbursement Prices) 
•	Pharmacoeconomics (Pharmacoeconomic Requirements) 
•	Price Build Up (Wholesalers, Retail Pharmacies, Dispensing Doctors, Sales Tax) 
•	Cost Containment (Industry Paybacks, Promotional Costs, Patient Co-payments, Prescribing Controls, Generics, Rx-to-OTC Switches, Parallel Trade) 
•	Future Developments (Outlook) 
Pricing & Reimbursement News: Weekly news service delivered direct to your desktop, hyperlinked throughout the site to related News stories. Archive of fully searchable News stories dating back to 1998. 

IMS Pharma Pricing & Reimbursement Magazine: Monthly news, views and analysis of international developments in the world of pharmaceutical pricing & reimbursement. 

Pricing & Reimbursement Benchmarks: Comparative facts and figures on key pricing & reimbursement indicators across 31 countries, updated quarterly. 

P&R Executive Summaries: 
•	Executive Summaries with policy impact analysis offer quick, easily digestible and cross-comparable analysis of the P&R environment. 
•	Supported by visual Policy Impact Analysis for immediate understanding of the key P&R policies that are impacting drug maker revenues, covering 31 leading pharmaceutical markets. 





5.	Minimum requirements

Any interested supplier must demonstrate by way of a Statement of Capabilities that it meets the following minimum requirements: 

•	An ability to provide comprehensively sources and timely analysis of pricing & reimbursement (P&R)  regime and developments in key world markets: (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway,  South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,  UK and USA.  Including news updates by a team of international pricing & reimbursement experts, fully sourced and linked to primary and secondary information sources, and personal contacts and support.
•	Thought Leadership articles/White Papers, providing unique perspectives and insights from IMS into P&R issues. 
•	Novel and consistent methodology to aid international comparisons; enhanced by the availability of tabular reports to assist in benchmarking activities and Advanced search tools and hyperlinks to enable rigorous database interrogation.

6.	Reason for non-competitive award

In accordance with the Government Contracts Regulations (GCR) of the Financial Administration Act, the following request falls under exception 6(d) of the GCR, which stipulates that only one person or contractor is capable of performing the contract.

IMS Health is a recognized industry leader that is often referenced by stakeholders from both the pharmaceutical industry as well as payers.  IMS has a proven track record with the organization of excellence, timeliness and precision.  The company has demonstrated expertise in both the collection of market data as well as in interpretation of these data.  IMS is the only company known to the organization to be able to meet consistently the required information in the complete, objective and non-biased fashion, with supporting documentation and access to international and external experts and source documentation and insights.  Increasingly the PMPRB has been relying on pricing and utilization data from IMS Health for both regulatory as well as reporting purposes and has gained both confidence as well as experience with IMS as a source of information. IMS Health is the supplier of various other domestic and international intelligence and is in a unique position to combine market insights with substantiating analytics from a network of data suppliers and international experts.  P&R information that compliments the data and price information housed at the PMPRB will provide even greater interpretive power to position the PMPRB for future priorities.  No other data/market intelligence supplier can provide the type of information that would be sufficient to our needs.  The subscription will add qualitative and quantitative information to existing databases with the same specifications and would allow for consistent interpretation of finding.  

7. 	Applicable trade agreements and justification for limited tendering

This procurement is subject to the Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT), North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Agreement-Agreement on Government Procurement (WTO-AGP)

NAFTA- Limited tendering reason; the goods or services can be supplied only by a particular supplier and no reasonable alternative or substitute exists, As per Article 1016.2(B) O- Limited tendering reason; the products or services can be supplied only by a particular supplier and no reasonable alternative or substitute exists, As per Article XV (15), Paragraph 1 (b) AIT- Limited tendering reason; where there is an absence of competition for technical reasons and the goods or services can be supplied only by a particular supplier and no alternative or substitute exists, As per Article  506 Paragraph12 (b)

8.	Ownership of Intellectual Property

Ownership of any Foreground Intellectual Property arising out of the proposed contract will vest with the Contractor.


9.	Period of the proposed contract

The proposed contract is for a period of one (1) year after the award of the contract with an irrevocable option on the part of Canada to extend the period of any resulting contract by up to five (5) additional one (1) year periods.


10.	Estimated value of the proposed contract

 
The total estimated value of the proposed contract should not exceed $167,231.00 USD including all option periods, travel and living expenses (if applicable), and all applicable taxes. 


11.	Closing date and time 

The closing date and time for accepting Statements of Capabilities is: 
Monday, September 28, 2015 at 12:00 pm EDT.


12.	Contact Person

All inquiries with regard to this Notice must be addressed by e-mail to:

Name:	 Nadia Laneve
E-Mail: nadia.laneve@pmprb-cepmb.gc.ca