Pair of protestors secure places on $1.7B NIH BPA
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By
Nick Wakeman
The National Cancer Institute makes additional awards after it had second look at proposals.
A pair of protestors have gotten the outcome they hoped for from the beginning -- spots on a $1.7 billion blanket purchase agreement.
In December, Octo and Grove Resource Solutions filed protests at the Government Accountability Office after they failed to be picked for a group of BPAs to supply complex IT services to researchers at the National Cancer Institute.
They challenged the decision to exclude them as well as the technical evaluations they received. Octo is now part of IBM, while GRSi is now part of DLH. GAO's docket lists the protestors as Octo and GRSi.
By early February, the companies each had made supplemental filings in response to NCI’s report to GAO. Then on Feb. 7, GAO dismissed the Octo protest and put the Grove challenge on pause.
The National Cancer Institute reconsidered proposals and made the awards on Feb. 22 to IBM/Octo and DLH/GRSi, according to Federal Procurement Data System records.
They join Accenture Federal Services, Customer Value Partners, Deloitte, Essex Management, General Dynamics IT and Unissant as holders of the BPAs. All nine companies will now compete with each other for work supporting cancer research and business and administrative needs at NCI.
Octo has made a new filing at GAO for something known as an “entitlement.” The company is likely trying to recoup legal fees it incurred in filing its protest.