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 Spectrometer.

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

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. It works to find new ways to treat, diagnose, and prevent illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, infections and neurodegenerative diseases.

The Francis Crick Institute Metabolomics Science Technology Platform (STP) seeks to purchase a high resolution mass spectrometer with liquid chromatography front end (LC-MS) for metabolomics research. The instrument will be used for metabolite profiling and metabolite identification. The instrument must match the capabilities and specifications of the current instrumentation both within the Metabolomics STP and being used by a newly-recruited metabolism research group, for continuity of data quality standards. The instrument must be able to at least provide the following performance:

Mass Spectrometer (MS) performance:

— The MS must be of a benchtop footprint and no larger than 1 m3

— The MS must be capable of real-time data acquisition and data processing, enabling a high spectrum repetition rate

— The MS must consist of a quadrupole mass filter capable of providing variable and stepless precursor isolation width selection from 0.4 Da to 2450 Da

— The MS must have a detector capable of delivering high resolution and accurate masses at all modes of operation

— The MS must have a multipole collision cell for Higher Energy Collision Dissociation (HCD)

— The MS must have Full Scan, Full Scan MS/MS, Selected Ion Monitoring, Selected/Multiple Reaction Monitoring, and an ‘All Ion’ Fragmentation mode.

— Sensitivity: Full MS: 500 fg Buspirone (or equivalent standard) on column yields S/N 100:1 or better; SIM: 30 fg Buspirone (or equivalent standard) on column yields S/N 100:1 or better

— Isolation: The instrument must be able to isolate ions stepless between:

o 0.4 Da and full mass range (between m/z 50 and m/z 400)

o 0.7 Da and full mass range (between m/z 400 and m/z 700)

o 1 Da and full mass range (between m/z 700 and m/z 1000)

o 2 Da and full mass range (between m/z 1000 and m/z 2000)

o 4 Da and full mass range (between m/z 2000 and 2500)

— Mass resolution: The instrument must have a maximum resolution of at least 140,000 (FWHM) at m/z 200 for all scan modes and both polarities (preferably 280,000)

— Scan speed: highest scan speed of 12 scans per second (R=17,500 at m/z 200) in Full Scan or SIM mode. Scan speed for MS/MS is up to 10 MS/MS scans per sec at high resolution (R=17,500 at m/z 200) in targeted or data dependent mode

— Mass accuracy: < 1 ppm RMS — with internal calibration and < 3 ppm RMS — with external calibration over 24 h and without any kind of mass recalibration

— Dynamic Range: > 5000:1 within one spectrum (single transient acquisition)

— Mass Range: The mass spectrometer must operate in the mass range of 50 — 6000 Da. The scan range must be at least: last mass = 15 x first mass

— Polarity switching: The mass spectrometer must be capable of fast polarity switching acquiring one spectrum in positive and one in negative ionization mode in one second at a resolution of 35,000 (@ m/z 200). In polarity switching mode the instrument must perform within the defined mass accuracy specifications above

— The MS must automatically control ion injection time for optimised ion currents across a chromatographic peak. It must be able to temporarily exclude an ion, while allowing MS/MS spectra acquisition of minor abundant precursors and the capability to automatically compensate for the mass dependent energy deposition and provide instrument-to-instrument reproducibility

— The MS must be able to be connected to an appropriate microflow LC system.

— The MS must have a suitable probe (heated electrospray ionisation or atmospheric pressure ionisation) which must operate at flow rates from 1 µl/min to 1 ml/min using 100 % water without splitting

Liquid chromatography (LC) specifications:

— The LC must be able an ultrahigh performance system (UHPLC)

— The LC binary pump must have a flow range of at least 0.001 — 5 mL/min, in 1 µL/min increments

— The LC binary pump must have a pressure range of at least 2–103 MPa (20–1034 bar, 290–15,000 psi) below 5 mL/min

— The LC column compartment must have a pressure range of at least 5–151 MPa (50–1517 bar, 700–22,000 psi).

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 following the publication of this notice. For further information, please contact the general counsel at the email address provided within this notice.

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):

It is the view of the Crick that the acquisition of the system from ThermoFisher as opposed any other instrument is justified on two key fronts:

1) Continuity: The key user group for this system will be relocating to the Crick and they are currently running approx 7 000 samples on this instrument at an alternative site. This specific instrument is therefore required as a continuation of the operation for this group. It also represents a continuation for all current users of an existing version of this system based in the established Crick STP.

2) Market review: The Crick STP users have a wealth of experience within mass spectrometry and have assessed the capabilities of the instrumentation available across the market place. ThermoFisher currently have the patent on specific mass spectrometer technology which delivers the highest possible ion mass resolution and this is the most important parameter in deciding which mass spectrometer to use in metabolite profiling metabolomics.

This resolution provides a confidence in metabolite identification that cannot be achieved using alternative technologies. Therefore, only the ThermoFisher instrument is suitable to the needs of the Metabolomics STP and associated research groups.