NIH Acquisition Center Extends CIO-SP3, Plans Corrective Action on $50B IT GWAC Recompete

The National Institutes of Health Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center has extended for another six months the Chief Information Officer-Solutions and Partners 3 contract as the agency works to take corrective action following protests to a recompete of its procurement vehicle for IT products and services.

“In the meantime, the CIO-SP3 programs currently expire October 29, 2023, and although we do not anticipate needing an additional six months we will provide it to April 29, 2024, to ensure there is no gap in contractual coverage for our customers between CIO-SP3 and CIO-SP4,” NITAAC said in a statement.

NITAAC’s move is in response to the Government Accountability Office’s decision on Monday to sustain 28 bid protests filed by 27 vendors against the CIO-SP4 contract, valued at $50 billion over 10 years. In June, GAO also sustained 98 protests filed by 64 offerors.

CIO-SP4 is a governmentwide acquisition contract with a five-year base term and five option years and seeks to meet the needs of agencies for IT platforms and services across 10 task areas, including biomedical research, health care and health sciences; digital government and cloud services; cybersecurity; and software development.

NITAAC also listed 12 arguments against the follow-on contract that GAO rejected, including allegations that it failed to consider all solicitation evaluation factors in making Phase 1 determinations.

The NIH acquisition organization said it is working to bring to market CIO-SP4 and is optimistic that the contract will serve as a “go-to resource” for defense and federal civilian agencies looking to buy IT platforms and services.

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