Defence Online

Type of document: Contract Notice
Country: United Kingdom
Publication Ref: (2023/S 000-003404/EN)
Nature of contract: Supply contract
Procedure: Award of a contract without prior publication
Type of bid required: Not applicable

Voluntary ex ante transparency notice
Supplies

Section I: Contracting authority
I.1) Name and addresses
Official name: Ministry of Defence
Postal address: DSTL Porton Down
Town: SALISBURY
Postal code: SP4 0JQ
Country: United Kingdom
Email: cbrcommercial@dstl.gov.uk
Internet address(es):
Main address:

I.4) Type of the contracting authority
Ministry or any other national or federal authority, including their regional or local sub-divisions
I.5) Main activity
Defence

Section II: Object
II.1) Scope of the procurement
II.1.1) Title: 178,651.90
II.1.2) Main CPV code: 38510000
II.1.3) Type of contract Supplies
II.1.4) Short Description:
Supply of Agilent Cytation automated digital fluorescence/luminescence upright and inverted microscope with incubator and robot arm
II.1.6) Information about lots
The contract is divided into lots: no
II.1.7) Total value of the procurement(excluding VAT)
Lowest offer: 178651.90/ Highest offer: 178651.90 taken into consideration
Currency: GBP

II.2) Description
II.2.2)Additional CPV code(s)
Main CPV code: 38510000

II.2.3) Place of performance
Nuts code: Main site or place of performance:SALISBURY

II.2.4) Description of the procurement
Supply of Agilent Cytation automated digital fluorescence/luminescence upright and inverted microscope with incubator and robot arm

II.2.5) Award criteria
II.2.11) Information about options
Options: no
II.2.13) Information about European Union funds
The procurement is related to a project and/or programme financed by European Union funds: no
Section IV: Procedure
IV.1) Description
IV.1.1) Type of procedure
Award of a contract without prior publication of a call for competition in the Official Journal of the European Union in the cases listed below
(please complete point 2 of the Annex D)
IV.1.8) Information about the Government Procurement Agreement(GPA)
The procurement is covered by the Government Procurement Agreement: no
IV.2) Administrative information

Section V: Award of contract/concession
Contract No: RQ0000022553
Title: Supply of Agilent Cytation automated digital fluorescence/luminescence upright and inverted microscope with incubator and robot arm

V.2) Award of contract/concession
V.2.1) Date of conclusion of the contract/concession award decision:2023-02-03
V.2.2) Information about tenders
V.2.3) Name and address of the contractor
Official name: Agilent Technologies LDA UK Limited
Postal address: Lakeside 5500, Cheadle Royal Business Park
Town: CHEADLE
Postal code: SK8 3GR
Country: United Kingdom
Nuts code:
The contractor is an SME: no

V.2.4) Information on value of the contract/lot/concession(excluding VAT)
for framework agreements – total maximum value for this lot
for contracts based on framework agreements, if required – value of contract(s) for this lot not included in
previous contract award notices
V.2.5) Information about subcontracting
The contract/lot/concession is likely to be subcontracted
Value or proportion likely to be subcontracted to third parties

Section VI: Complementary informationVI.4) Procedures for review
VI.4.1) Review body
Official name: DSTL Porton Down
Town: SALISBURY
Postal code: SP4 0JQ
Country: United Kingdom

VI.5) Date of dispatch of this notice:
2023-02-03

Other justification for the award of the contract without prior publication of a call for competition
in the Official Journal of the European Union
The contract has as its object services listed in Annex II B to the directive

3.Explanation
Please explain in a clear and comprehensive manner why the award of the contract without prior publication in the Official Journal of the European Union
is lawful, by stating the relevant facts and, as appropriate, the conclusions of law in accordance with the directive:
Negotiated Procedure without Prior Publication subject to Negotiated Procedure without Prior Publication for
Technical Reasons under PCR, Regulation 32(5)(b)
The reasons can be broken down into four areas:
Complexity
All manufacturers have proprietary software to run their machines and analyse resultant images. It is necessary that the intended new system use the same management and image analysis software as our extant system.
This type of equipment is intended to provide high quality images of complex microscopic items and undertake complex image analysis to extract quantitative information. Human interpretation of the image is subjective, and the image analysis software is required to remove subjectivity. The management software components (different from the image analysis components) are required to automate the system to take images without the operator present, including images of the same exact microscopic location in a sample dish and locating the correct plane in which to focus to provide sequential images for the analysis software components.
All components of the software are complex and require both specialist training (2-3 days) to familiarise, and frequent use (on at least a weekly basis) to reinforce, develop and maintain expertise. It is imperative for this reason that the new system be compatible with the existing system, to ensure that users do not have to learn and maintain expertise across two systems. The new system will be placed in a different biological containment environment to the extant system. This provides a further challenge for maintaining expertise across two different systems, as specialist users do not spend equal amounts of time in the two environments.
Scientific rigour
Dstl already operates an Agilent Cytation microscope running Agilent’s proprietary Gen5 software. Multiple fluorescent signals are stimulated with specific wavelength light sources and detected with specific wavelength light sensors that are built into the system. Experiments at Dstl are designed specifically for these stimulation and detection optics, making and using cell lines and reagents that match the specifications of the system. A different system will have different specifications. Where these are similar to those of Agilent, they are likely to be slightly different in terms of wavelengths for stimulation and detection. This will mean a system from a different manufacturer may give a different result. Where the margins between samples are fine, small differences in image data resulting from differences in stimulation and detection optics have the potential to combine with different analysis software to confound the experiments. As the two systems are required to give consistency of data across different biological containment environments, it is a requirement they use the same fluorescence stimulator and detection optics.
Redundancy
The stimulation and detection optics for fluorescence microscopy are user-removable components of the Agilent system. This means that if an optical component in one machine fails, it can be replaced by the user, with a component from the sister machine. This is a significant advantage to Dstl, where experiments in high containment environments are expensive and are often undertaken on a tight schedule. The ability to rapidly (i.e. same day) replace an optical component in a high containment environment with an identical component from a sister machine in the low containment environment will be a significant advantage.