Laboratory, optical and precision equipments (excl. glasses)

Tender description

VEAT notice to alert the market of the University of Birmingham intention to award a contract for Leica’s BondRx platform via a sole source procedure and not through a competitive OJEU tender procedure. Characterising tissue microenvironments and specific cell types, receptors, ligands and transcriptional signatures is key to understanding disease pathogenesis, prognosis and therapy response, and to develop therapeutic intervention strategies. UoB is seeking new technologies for multiplex, spatially resolved quantitative analysis of targets/biomarkers. This will allow research groups and collaborators/industry partners to define biological mechanisms in specific clinical scenarios, catalysing novel targeted therapy development. To address this, UoB wishes to expand its digital histology platforms. In addition to Nanostring’s GeoMx platform, which provides high-plex spatial transcriptomics, UoB needs to expand multispectral immunofluorescence (mIF) capacity. mIF allows parallel assessment of multiple markers in single sections, preserving tissue and enabling identification of specific cell populations definable only by marker combinations. There is strong and expanding demand for mIF in its own right, and of note, 3-plex mIF staining is an essential preliminary step before use of the Nanostring GeoMx platform. The University will now procure 2 Leica Bond Rx platforms, through a sole source route and not a competitive tender via OJEU as this instrument is the only instrument which provides the University with the following requirements: — compatibility with existing multispectral immunofluorescence stains: the Leica BondRx will enable seamless compatibility with multiple (>20) existing mIF staining panels, all painstakingly optimised using UoB’s existing Leica BondRx. While in principle this optimisation and validation process could be reproduced on an alternative automated mIF platform, in reality this is totally impractical and UoB has no spare resources to devote to this, — training compatibility: the selected platform must be immediately operable by our experienced biomedical scientists, who need to deliver multiple ongoing mIF projects, and are extremely highly trained on the Bond Rx (including attendance of US-based course on mIF on the Bond Rx, held over 1 week in Boston); they have no training on alternative platforms, — compatibility with existing control unit: we are seeking 2 identical automated staining platforms controllable alongside our Bond Rx from a single unit. This enables a single user to control all 3 at once, saving time and facilitating planning of multiple staining procedures. Whereas 2 new Bond Rx platforms could be integrated alongside our existing platform under one such controller, this would be impossible with platforms from another manufacturer, — compatibility with downstream digital histology platforms: to expand our digital histology efforts, we are acquiring a Nanostring Technologies’ GeoMx, to work alongside our Vectra mIF platform (Akoya Biosciences). Both require robust automated mIF prior to imaging. Both companies have a strategic partnership with Leica involving use of the Leica Bond Rx for automated staining prior to imaging/analysis. The Bond Rx would be highly beneficial in aligning our mIF procedures with those of each company, — synergy with Astra Zeneca Cambridge site: our strategic collaboration with Astra Zeneca (Cambridge) will harmonise mIF stains prior to eventual clinical use, and involve sharing of mIF staining protocols. This will require the same automated staining platform. This group is using the Leica Bond Rx for mIF stains. Selection of the Bond Rx will therefore catalyse this collaboration, whereas an alternative platform would cause substantial problems, impeding harmonisation and efficient adoption of mIF stains. This VEAT notice is alerting the market of the University’s intention to award a contract via a sole source procedure and not via a competitive tender via OJEU. The University intends to award a contract for the above once a 10 day standstill period has ended. The standstill period will commence from the publication of this notice in OJEU.