Advance Contract Award Notice (ACAN) - 15-22158

Advance Contract Award Notice (ACAN) - 15-22158

An ACAN is a public notice indicating to the supplier community that a department or agency intends to award a contract for goods, services or construction to a pre-identified supplier, thereby allowing other suppliers to signal their interest in bidding, by submitting a statement of capabilities. If no supplier submits a statement of capabilities that meets the requirements set out in the ACAN, on or before the closing date stated in the ACAN, the contracting officer may then proceed with the award to the pre-identified supplier.

Requirement:

The National Research Council Canada has a requirement to complete a fermentation technology transfer at a 20 L scale and produce fermentation biomass from a minimum of three (3) fed-batch fermentation runs at 1500 L scale according to established protocols by end of February 2016

The work will involve the following: The proposed vendor will complete the technology and analytical method transfer at 20 L scale according to a fermentation protocol provided by NRC. Subsequently, a minimum of three (3) non-GMP, batch-fed fermentation runs will be conducted at 1500L scale. Biomass produced will be collected as a wet slurry by disk-stack centrifugation and shipped frozen for subsequent analysis. NRC’s Customer will provide the fermentation protocols to be used and sufficient seed material for the fermentation.

The supplier must complete the following tasks.

D1. Demonstration of technology transfer via completion of a non-GMP 20L fermentation trial as per provided protocol. Technology transfer shall include analytical method transfer, writing of procedures, set-up, and analysis of samples, in-process and final product

D2. Completion of a minimum of 3x1500 L non-GMP production fermentation batches as per provided protocol and technology transfer.

D3. Biomass from each fermentation in D1 and D2, collected as a slurry by disk-stack centrifugation and shipped frozen to the designated location,

D4. Process reports and batch records for each fermentation in D1 and D2

Constraints: All fermentation runs must be completed and biomass shipped to the Customer no later than February 28, 2016.

This procurement is subject to the following trade agreement(s):

World Trade Organization - Agreement on Government Procurement (WTO-AGP)

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

Justification for the Pre-Identified Supplier:

A competitive solution is not feasible in this case because the exigencies of the service required are tied to a specific scheduling deadline that is immutable. NRC has been contracted by an external client under a Technical Services Agreement to undertake the technology transfer of a fermentation protocol and then employ that protocol to produce a fixed amount of fermentation biomass. The biomass produced is being shipped by NRC for downstream processing and crop field trials in the US. Field trials have already been contracted by the client and must begin concurrent with the spring planting deadline in April 2016. To

meet the April planting schedule, downstream processing of the biomass must be completed in March 2016, which requires that all biomass production conclude by the end of February 2016

A combination of delays due to technical challenges in technology transfer and recent demands on internal fermentation capacity requires NRC to subcontract part of this production to an external service provider if it is to meet the contractual deadline. NRC’s review of service providers has revealed only three entities in Canada other than NRC itself with the potential to undertake 1500 L fermentation scale with associated disk-stacked centrifugation processing. Two of those entities, Apotex and Alberta Innovates Technology Futures (AITF), cannot undertake the work before the spring planting trial due to existing commitments. There are no other known suppliers with the technical expertise to satisfy our requirement.

BioVectra Ltd (Charlottetown) has confirmed the ability to conduct the work within the hard time frame. In order to do so, equipment testing and technology transfer to BioVectra must begin before mid-January 2016 if fermentation is to occur in February 2016.

Supplier’s Right to Submit a Statement of Capabilities: Suppliers who consider themselves fully qualified and available to provide the services described in the ACAN may submit a statement of capabilities in writing to the contact person identified in this notice on or before the closing date of this notice. The statement of capabilities must clearly demonstrate how the supplier meets the advertised requirements within the prescribed time period as advertised.

Government Contracts Regulations Exception(s): The following exception(s) to the Government Contracts Regulations is (are) invoked for this procurement under subsection 1016 subsection 6(d) "only one person is capable of performing the work").

Exclusions and/or Limited Tendering Reasons: World Trade Organization - Agreement on Government Procurement (WTO-AGP) and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Article(s) 1016.2 (b) - for reasons connected with the protection of patents, copyrights or other exclusive rights, or proprietary information or where there is an absence of competition for technical reasons, the goods or services can be supplied only by a particular supplier and no reasonable alternative or substitute exists.

Ownership of Intellectual Property: No Intellectual Property will be generated in this Procurement Contract.

Period of the proposed contract or delivery date: Start early January 2016 and must be completed no later than February 28, 2016

Name and address of the pre-identified supplier: Bio-Vectra 11 Aviation Avenue Charlottetown, PEI Canada

Suppliers who consider themselves fully qualified and available to provide the goods, services or construction services described in the ACAN may submit a statement of capabilities in writing to the contact person identified in this notice on or before the closing date of this notice. The statement of capabilities must clearly demonstrate how the supplier meets the advertised requirements.

Closing date for a submission of a statement of capabilities:

The closing date and time for accepting statements of capabilities is January 6th 2016, 2PM Eastern

Inquiries and statements of capabilities are to be directed to:

Contracting Officer:

Johnathon Gillis

(613) 993-5506

Email: Johnathon.Gillis@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca