SRA contract award could be shot in the arm for NIH

In a move that could help the country's medical research agency save more lives, the National Institutes of Health is set to upgrade its IT systems.

SRA International Inc. won a six-year, $15 million contract, if all options are exercised, to provide enterprise messaging and IT infrastructure support services to NIH's Center for Information Technology.

Terms of the project call for SRA of Fairfax, Va., to upgrade and maintain the center's IT systems, which are used by more than 40,000 people for scientific, administrative and other business applications.

The project was awarded under the Chief Information Officer Solutions and Partners 2 Innovations contract. The agreement calls for SRA to offer systems engineering, operation and maintenance, software development, systems security and evaluation and deployment of emerging technologies in wireless applications.

SRA is an IT provider to clients in national security, civil government, health care and public health markets. The company has about 4,800 employees and annual revenue of $881 million. SRA ranks No. 27 on Washington Technology's 2005 Top 100 list, which ranks federal prime contracting revenue.