Research and development services and related consultancy services

Tender description

This Prior Information Notice (PIN) is not a call for competition. The purpose of this PIN is to notify the interested organisations of a potential Department of Health (DH) requirement and to gather interest from organisations that may wish to bid and subsequently engage in pre tender dialogue. The DH intends to run a procurement to appoint an organisation to provide academic research or consultancy services, the purpose of these services will be to advise the DH regarding the stockpiles of essential medicines. It is a requirement that organisations that subsequently bid for this work must be entirely impartial and independent of any influence from pharmaceutical suppliers. DH is responsible for the security of supply of medicines and takes the lead in the prevention, mitigation and management of medicines supply problems within the UK. DH is also responsible for ensuring that plans are in place to prevent and respond to outbreaks of infectious disease and other threats to the health of the population including an influenza pandemic. As part of our on-going strategic work to ensure the continuity of medicine supplies and to ensure that supplies of medicines are available within the UK to respond to supply disruptions caused by pandemics or other emergencies, DH owns an Essential Medicines Buffer Stockpile (EMBS). The EMBS operates differently to other national stockpiles in that the suppliers who win the contracts are required to store and rotate the stock through their normal supply chain to prevent it from expiring. All the stock must be held with at least a 12 month expiry date and it must be held within the UK. At the end of the contract, suppliers must buy back the stock back from DH. The stockpile was first procured in 2009 and a second procurement exercise was carried out during 2014/2015. It is a requirement that organisations that subsequently bid for this work must be independent of the pharmaceutical industry. This project has two separate deliverables: Deliverable 1: A reproducible methodology, using a MCDA-based approach, to populate and update a ranked list of essential medicines for inclusion within the Essential Medicines Buffer Stock, to support procurement. Deliverable 2: A list of essential medicines for inclusion in the EMBS, ranked by the degree to which they are deemed essential, to satisfy various budget scenarios and a method for assessing their health benefits. Organisations that are interested in subsequently bidding for the work should refer to the details in section II.8 (Additional Information) below.