VOLUNTARY EX ANTE TRANSPARENCY NOTICE

Section I: Contracting Authority/Entity

I.1)

Name, Address and Contact Point(s)

I.2)

Type of contracting Authority and Main Activity or Activities

Ministry or any other national or federal authority, including their regional or local sub-divisions National or federal agency/Office Regional or local Authority Regional or local Agency/Office Body governed by public law European Institution/Agency or International Organisation

General public services Defence Public order and safety Environment Economic and financial affairs Health Housing and community amenities Social protection Recreation, culture and religion Education Other (Please specify): Biomedical Research

Section II: Object of the Contract

II.1)

Description

II.1.1)

Title attributed to the contract by the contracting authority

Mass Cytometer.

II.1.2(a))

Type of works contract

II.1.2(b))

Type of supplies contract

Purchase		Rent		Lease
Hire-purchase		Combination of these

II.1.2(c))

Type of service contract

II.1.2)

Main site or location of works, place of delivery or performance

The Francis Crick Institute, 1 Midland Road, London, NW1 1AT.

II.1.3)

This notice involves a framework agreement

II.1.4)

Short description of the contract or purchase(s)

The Francis Crick Institute (‘the Crick’) is a biomedical research institute dedicated to understanding the scientific mechanisms of living things. Its work is to understand why disease develops and to find new ways to treat, diagnose and prevent illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, infections and neuro-degenerative diseases.

The Francis Crick Institute requires a high-end Mass Cytometer that incorporates the very latest technologies available in the field, to overcome the limitations posed by traditional flow cytometry (limited number of analytes and ability to resolve tagged antibodies with overlapping fluorophores). Mass cytometry is a relatively new technology that overcomes these limitations by using lanthanide-labelled antibodies to tag cells that are then measured using a mass ctytometer (also termed CyTOF). The outcome is an improved signal-to-noise ratio and little overlap of signal, enabling cells to be labelled with far greater numbers of different antibodies than conventional flow cytometry, with over 100 detection channels being feasible. The resulting multiparametric data then allows researchers to identify not only complex protein marker combinations but also pathway activation states in normal and diseased biological systems. A major new development of this technology is the addition of an imaging module, which enables highly multiplexed 1 µm resolution images of tissues (FFPE, frozen and smears of cells) of, currently, 42 proteins simultaneously. This methodology provides a major advance in imaging, specifically enabling analysis of expression and activation state of proteins and phenotyping of cells within a tissue or a tumour. It will be possible to identify all cell types within a tissue or tumour while preserving the three dimensional architecture, thus enabling a more ‘ecosystemic’ analysis of cells. Given the known complexity of disease biology this technology has the potential to be a step-change in analytical power that transforms research in this area.

The purchase of this Mass Cytometer will allow Crick researchers to make best use of the collaborative facilities at the Crick towards improving human health with a particular focus on immunity and infection. Examples include identifying immune mechanisms of pathogenesis in tuberculosis, immune response to the malaria parasite, characterization host response to HIV infection and tumour microenvironment interactions. This type of equipment will enable the Crick to maintain its cutting-edge international reputation and success in this research area at the highest international level.

Currently the Crick has mass spectrometry facilities within the Proteomic and Metabolomics Laboratories but this technology allows whole cells to be analysed and is a single cell complement to genomics studies as well as integrating with Histopathology. The experiments here will explore the complexities of the immune system in health and specific disease states including malaria, HIV and Toxoplasmosis. Additionally any heterogeneous biological system would benefit from an increased number of measurable parameters, for example in stem cell and developmental biology. The imaging platform would allow dissection of cell-cell interactions, tumour-host interactions and the complexity of the tissue microenvironment to be studied at 1 micron resolution. Currently the Crick does not have this capability.

II.1.5)

Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV)

II.1.6)

Contract covered by the government procurement agreement (GPA)

II.2)

Total final value of the contract(s)

II.2.1)

Total final value of the contract(s)

Section IV: Procedure

IV.1)

Type of procedure

IV.1.1)

Type of procedure

IV.2)

Award criteria

IV.2.1)

Award criteria

IV.2.2)

An electronic auction has been used

IV.3)

Administrative information

IV.3.1)

File reference number attributed by the contracting authority

IV.3.2)

Previous publication(s) concerning the same contract

Other previous publications

Section V: Award of contract

Contract No:

 Lot Number: 

 Title: 

V.1)

Date of contract award decision:

V.2)

Numbers of offers received:

V.3)

Name and address of economic operator to whom the contract has been awarded

V.4)

Information on value of contract

V.5)

The contract is likely to be subcontracted

Short description of the value/proportion of the contract to be subcontracted

Section VI: Complementary Information

VI.1)

Contract related to a project and/or programme financed by community funds?

VI.2)

Additional Information

VI.3)

Procedures for appeal

VI.3.1)

Body responsible for appeal procedures

Body responsible for mediation procedures

VI.3.2)

Lodging of appeals

The Contracting Authority intends to enter into a contract, following a minimum 10 day calendar standstill period from the publication of this notice. For further information please contact the General Counsel at the e-mail address indicated.

VI.3.3)

Service from which information about the lodging of appeals may be obtained

VI.4)

Dispatch date of this Notice

Annex D1 – General procurement

Justification for the award of the contract without prior publication of a contract notice in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU)
Directive 2004/18/EC

a) No tenders or no appropriate tenders in response to:

	Open procedure
	Restricted procedure

b) The products involved are manufactured purely for the purpose of research, experiment, study or development under the conditions stated in the Directive (for supplies only).

c) The works/goods/services can be provided only by a particular tenderer for reasons that are:

	Technical
	Artistic
	Connected with the protection of exclusive rights

d) Extreme urgency brought about by events unforeseeable by the contracting authority and in accordance with the strict conditions stated in the Directive.

e) Additional works/deliveries/services are ordered under the strict conditions stated in the Directive.

f) New works/services, constituting a repetition of existing works/services and ordered in accordance with the strict conditions stated in the Directive.

g)Service contract awarded to the successful candidate or one of them after a design contest.

h) For supplies quoted and purchased on a commodity market.

i) For the purchase of supplies on particularly advantageous terms:

	from a supplier which is definitely winding up its business activities
	from the receivers or liquidators of a bankruptcy, an arrangement with creditors or a similar procedure.

j) All tenders submitted in reply to an open procedure, a restricted procedure or competitive dialogue were irregular or unacceptable. Only those tenderers were included in the negotiations which have satisfied the qualitative selection criteria.

Other justification for the award of the contract without prior publication of a contract notice in the OJEU:

k) The contract has as its object services listed in Annex B of Directive 2004/18/EC or in Annex XVII B of Directive 2004/17/EC

l) The contract falls outside the scope of application of the relevant directive.

In addition to the box(es) ticked above please explain in a clear and comprehensive manner why the award of the contract without prior publication of a contract notice in the OJEU is lawful, stating in any case the relevant facts, and, as appropriate, the conclusions of law in accordance with the articles in the relevant Directive (500 words maximum):

The Francis Crick Institute intends to procure a mass cytometer from Fluidigm, as we are unaware of any other supplier who would be able to provide this technology.

The instrument would be installed to customised requirements within the Flow Cytometry facility at the Crick. The key requirements of the system are:

— Analysis of individual cells labelled with stable metal isotopes using state of the art inductively coupled plasma time of flight (TOF) technology;

— 135 detection channels allowing simultaneous resolution of multiple elemental probes at high acquisition rates allowing detection of over 100 analytes;

— High sensitivity for low level expression of targets with a detection limit of fewer than 350 antibodies/cell;

— Peak throughput 2000 events/sec;

— Dynamic range 4.5 orders of magnitude;

— Addition of an imaging module allowing laser ablation of micron sized pieces of tissue and introduction of these to a mass cytometer;

— Automated calibration and quality control;

— Pneumatic sample introduction.