NIH's CIO-SP3 onramp hits another snag

The National Institutes of Health made what it thought was its last awards in May for the on-ramp portion of the CIO-SP3 Small Business contract.

But nothing is ever really over it seems.

Several companies have filed bid protests because they were not among the 244 winners NIH picked to join the $20 billion contract for IT integration and outsourcing services.

The protesters are MicroTech, Softrams LLC, and InterImage. The protests were filed over the course of late May and early June with decisions from the Government Accountability Office expected in late August and early September. Though there is a possibility that GAO could wrap them into a single decision.

The companies are saying they should have been among the winners if the competition was conducted properly.

Good news for NIH though: the protest window has closed so it would take something extraordinary for other companies to protest at this point.

NIH still has to file its response so a corrective action isn’t out of the realm of possibilities yet. In the meantime, NIH has issued a stop-work order for the contract.

It may be easier for NIH to just add these three to the on-ramp and then let the competition for task orders sort things out going forward.

But no one takes our advice.