178,651.90 · UK public procurement notice

CPV: Microscopes

Procedure method

Award procedure without prior publication of a call for competition

Legal basis

CELEX · 32009L0081 Defence and Security Public Contracts Regulations 2011 (Directive 2009/81/EC)

Procurement category

Goods

Notice status

Awarded without competition

Procurement threshold

Unspecified in notice

Regulatory regime

Standard

Commercial structure

Stand-alone contract (no framework)

Competition type

Direct award (no call for competition)

GPA / WTO covered

Unspecified in notice

Recurring procurement

Unspecified in notice

First published

3 Feb 2023, 12:10 GMT

Last source update

3 Feb 2023, 12:10 GMT

FTS notice number

2023/S 000-003404

Classification (CPV)

Microscopes

Delivery area

South West (UKK)

Official registry OCID

ocds-h6vhtk-03a2bb Find a Tender

Why no open competition

The contract has as its object services listed in Annex II B to the directive

Published justification

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.

• Agilent Technologies LDA UK LimitedAwarded supplier Lakeside 5500, Cheadle Royal Business Park, CHEADLE, North West, SK8 3GR

No document links were published on the notice.