Protest nets HUBzone firm spot on $20B CIO-SP3 contract

After a brief protest battle, the National Institutes of Health has added one more company to its group of new entrants under the CIO-SP3 contract's on-ramp program.

NIH announced Friday that it intended to give an award to Washington Business Dynamics LLC, a HUBzone company in Washington, D.C. The company had filed a protest in June after they were left off the initial cut.

So far NIH has made awards to small businesses in the HUBzone category and the service-disabled, veteran-owned category. Small business awards for other SB categories are still under review.

With the award to Washington Business Dynamics, the number of companies slated to win on-ramp awards in the HUBzone category rises to 21. The first 20 awards were made June 13.

NIH is still in the process of finalizing the HUBzone awards. Agencies are required to publish the list of intended small business awardees to give an opportunity for others to challenge whether the companies meet the requirements for a small business designation.

In April, NIH finalized awards to 38 companies in the service-disabled, veteran-owned small business categories. After protests, two more companies in Pro-Sphere Tek Inc. and Phoenix Data Security were added in June.

The NIH CIO-SP3 is a $20 billion vehicle first awarded in 2012 that is used by agencies to buy IT services.

There are 10 services categories:

• IT services for biomedical research and health care
• CIO support
• Imaging
• Outsourcing
• Operations and maintenance
• Integration services
• Critical infrastructure protection and information assurance
• Digital government
• Enterprise management systems
• Software development