Cytometers

Tender description

The current Covid-19 pandemic has mandated the need for urgent assessment of correlates of immune protection in vulnerable populations. Residents in Care Homes are at greatly increased risk of mortality and comprise over 20 % of all UK deaths. VIVALDI is the UK national epidemiological study of care homes. The University of Birmingham has been contracted by government to analyse immunological outputs from this study. This will require intensive multi-dimensional analysis of cell populations in residents and staff. This VEAT notice is to alert the market of the University of Birmingham intention to award a contract for supply of a multiparametric flow cytometer via a sole source procedure and not through a competitive OJEU tender procedure. The current Covid-19 pandemic has mandated the need for urgent assessment of correlates of immune protection in vulnerable populations. Residents in Care Homes are at greatly increased risk of mortality and comprise over 20 % of all UK deaths. VIVALDI is the UK national epidemiological study of care homes (www.nihr.ac.uk/news/nihr-supported-vivaldi-care-home-study-leads-to-new-social-care-testing-strategy/25198). The University of Birmingham has been contracted by government to analyse immunological outputs from this study. This will require intensive multi-dimensional analysis of cell populations in residents and staff. This information will be used for urgent public health assessment of: 1) how past infection impacts on immune function in older people; and 2) to identify those who are at increased risk. To achieve this, we will require urgent acquisition of a multiparametric flow cytometer. Here we propose to proceed immediately to purchase of the BD FACSymphony A3 system. The reasons for this are twofold. 1) There is intense pressure to provide immunological information very rapidly to the Department of Health to address Public Health challenges in Care Homes relating to issues such as vulnerability, consequences of infection and scenario planning for the annual influenza vaccination. We are required to report to government on a regular basis and need rapid purchase of equipment. This is essential in light of the risk of an imminent ‘second wave’ of infection and the need to understand the optimal approach for the annual influenza vaccination currently being assessed. As such we wish to make an order immediately. 2) The BD FACSymphony A3 is a unique and highly specialised flow cytometer which allows simultaneous analysis of up to 30 protein markers on cell subsets with the use of 5 lasers (www.biosystems.com.ar/archivos/folletos/448/BD_FACSymphony%E2%84%A2_A3.pdf). The purchase of this machine will feed information directly into the recently awarded GBP 6.5 million UKRI UK Coronavirus Immunology Consortium (UK-CIC) where we will amalgamate immune data in federated data sets and compare information on care home residents with very large datasets from the across the UK. Importantly, audit of platforms within this cohort shows that BD systems are used in all Centres and the use of a Symphony would allow immediate and effective integration with these systems. In particular, this would allow analysis across the BD FACSDivaTM software system which is integral to the BD FACSymphonyTM platform and simplifies many processes essential for setting up a higher parameter flow cytometer such as automated compensation. BD also uniquely offer FlowJo® software for analysis of raw data files and this widely considered as a gold-standard due to intuitive interface, advanced feature set, and open-ended plugin architecture. This allows straightforward visualisation of multiparametric data un statistical platforms such as tSNE and SPADE. In light of these points we do not believe that tendering is a viable option on this occasion. 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 10 day standstill period will commence from the publication of this notice in OJEU.