SARS/CoV2 Next Generation Pathogens Genomics Processing, Analysis and Operations

Tender description

Provision and operation of a system offering rapid, resilient, scalable and interoperable services for processing microbial pathogen sequence data, initially for SARS-CoV-2 genomes. Lot 1: The Authority requires an enhanced service converting SARS-CoV2 microbial genome sequence data into epidemiologically useful information. In particular, it needs to track mutations, to assign evolutionary lineage present in the sequence and monitor inter-sample relatedness; this will require multiple algorithms/computational approaches to provide public health experts with a battery of analytical outputs to ascertain genomic characteristics to a forensic level to inform individual and collective public health decision making. Such services will need to be standardised, secure, and scalable, to be applicable to the sequencer outputs currently prevalent, to facilitate sharing of sequence data between organizations, and to be interoperable with various internal processes occurring within the Authority.The Authority would like to • Understand the current market availability of such services globally • Assess Provider appetite in hosting such services within the United Kingdom • Understand whether services provided by the supplier are currently in use on a regional, national or international scale• Understand the estimated duration required for these services to be setup and hosted within the United Kingdom• Understand the nature of the technical process the solution uses in order to achieve the goals• Understand how the infrastructure used could be applied to processing pathogens other than SARS-CoV-2• Review documentation and/or certifications that demonstrate adherence to technical, clinical, security, environmental, process, quality and governance standards. Initially the Authority would like meet Providers who can demonstrate that their genomic processing, analytical and operational capabilities can meet these requirements. Based on its findings and information collected, The Authority expects to launch a further competition to all Providers, subject to internal approvals, that will allow it to fully assess the capabilities of the Providers. The exact procurement procedure has yet to be determined but The Authority will be seeking to fairly assess and measure all qualified Providers on their capabilities.The Authority is refactoring its genomics computational infrastructure to establish a systematic and scalable service for rapidly processing sequence-data that meets industry and ISO standards, and is available for its specialist scientific and clinical practitioners. The service should deliver accurate and quality-controlled sequence-data processing, analysis and reporting. It should support both the increasing number of samples sequenced domestically, and their comparison with those generated a global surveillance level, and should facilitate sharing of data between consenting organisations. Additional information: Further background information can be found in the attached document.The Authority is agnostic about the mechanism(s) by which the solutions are implemented. Software as a Service (SaaS) or software running on provider owned and maintained equipment, are acceptable solutions. So too are arrangements in which a software stack is run by the provider on The Authority owned infrastructure.