The Department of Defense, through the Defense Health Agency (DHA), is seeking support services for the DoD Serum Repository located in Silver Spring, Maryland. The procurement involves a sole-source contract with Diversified Laboratory Repair, Inc. to provide essential services including specimen processing, laboratory operations, data entry, general repository operations, transportation of specimens, equipment monitoring, and maintenance of laboratory equipment. These services are critical for the preparation and management of serum specimens used in public health sero-surveillance and research studies, with operations requiring the handling of thousands of specimens monthly. Interested parties must submit their capability statements to Kasey Carroll at kasey.l.carroll.civ@health.mil by 1:00 P.M. EST on March 20, 2026, as this opportunity is not open for competitive proposals.

THIS IS A PRESOLICITATION PUBLIC NOTICE CONTRACT AND IS NOT A REQUEST FOR COMPETITIVE PROPOSALS.

The Defense Health Agency Contracting Activity (DHACA) intends to negotiate on a sole source basis, IAW FAR 6.103-1, with Diversified Laboratory Repair, Inc (DLR), as the only responsible source that can provide support services in the following areas:

•           Specimen Processing

•           Laboratory Operations

•           Data Entry

•           General Repository Operations

•           Transportation of Specimens

•           Equipment Monitoring

•           Maintenance

The Contractor shall provide support services to the DoD Serum Repository in preparing aliquots of serum specimens for public health sero-surveillance, operational and research studies, at the rate of one large study per month, and the preparation of a small number of aliquots of serum specimens for individual clinical purposes.

Currently, the DoDSR prepares aliquots of serum specimens for public health sero-surveillance, operational and research studies, at the rate of one large study per month. This preparation involves retrieval, sorting, aliquotting, and shipping approximately 2,000 –3,000 specimens per study. The number of specimens prepared per large study can vary from 500 to up 20,000 specimens. The DoDSR also prepares aliquots of serum specimens for individual clinical purposes. The number of specimens prepared for clinical purposes is typically small.

There is a requirement to staff the repository and laboratory with personnel to adequately support the operations of DoDSR. These operations include management support, laboratory support, inventory support, transportation support, timely storage and retrieval of specimens, quality control, and general office duties.

There is a requirement to provide routine transportation of the specimens from various contract labs to the DoDSR located in Silver Spring, MD.   These trips occur 7 – 8 times per year using a DoD owned freezer truck.  The drivers function as inventory technicians while not transporting specimens.  In the event that the DoD owned freezer truck is not available, it will be necessary for the contractor to have the ability to pickup specimens from the designated labs using their own or leased freezer truck and their own drivers, not the inventory technicians.

There is a requirement to perform periodic maintenance and service required to maintain all equipment necessary to ensure the freezers maintain the required temperature.  The maintenance includes installed freezers and all necessary components (compressors, evaporators, cooling towers, pumps, storage tanks, monitoring and data logging system, etc.) for the entire period of the contract.

The contractor shall provide maintenance and all service work required for eleven (11) large walk-in freezers complete with alarm, monitoring systems, and data logging equipment.  Each freezer requires a total of four (4) low temperature medium profile evaporators.  Two (2) evaporators are coupled with one (1) indoor water-cooled condensing unit utilizing R404A type refrigerant and hot gas defrost.  The walls, floors and ceiling of the freezers are constructed of 6 inch thick, foam insulated, metal-clad, 12 ft. high sections.

**Specimen Processing:**

The contractor shall be responsible for conducting specimen processing.  Specimen Processing consists of accepting the shipment of specimens from frozen transport, verifying the contents of the shipment, accessing the specimens into the inventory by performing data entry on the individual cardboard containers or by performing data entry on the individual specimens, performing quality control checks, and placing the cardboard containers of specimens in precise locations in walk-in freezers for storage.  Shipments from the contract laboratory and the Air Force testing laboratory occur every 6 – 7 weeks.

Currently, each shipment from the contract laboratory and the Air Force testing laboratory contains approximately 350,000 specimens. Shipments are received on specially designed rolling carts containing cardboard containers with the specimens inside.

The cardboard containers containing specimens from the contract laboratory and the Air Force testing laboratory are approximately 6” x 18” x 3.5” in size and contains 308 specimens, each consisting of approximately 2.5mL of frozen serum. Specimens from other laboratories may be received in loose form, or in non-standard cardboard containers, requiring manual resorting and placement into standard containers.

All specimen processing steps will be performed in a timely manner. Care will be taken during specimen processing to minimize specimen temperature fluctuations. The contractor shall store the specimens at –30°C immediately after the specimens are accessed into inventory system.

**Laboratory Operations:**

The contractor shall perform Laboratory Operations to prepare specimens for shipping to other facilities for studies when requested by the Contracting Officer Representative (COR).

Laboratory operations shall include thawing retrieved frozen specimens, preparing and labeling aliquots of serum from the retrieved specimens, preparing a determined number of aliquots for shipment, preparing and labeling aliquots of remaining serum for further frozen storage, and reshelving of the aliquots.

To support laboratory operations manual retrieval and reshelving of specimens and aliquots shall be required.

To support proper laboratory operations, the contractor shall maintain the laboratory to ensure the consistency, reliability and reproducibility of resultant aliquots.

**Data Entry:**

The contractor shall perform Data Entry in support of specimen processing, laboratory operations, and when necessary to support the conversion of a backlog of historical paper manifest records into electronic format.

During specimen processing the contractor shall perform data entry to access the specimens into the inventory system. Data entry steps may include manually entering container number, manually entering individual specimen number and location data, and performing quality control checks.

Currently, for specimens received from the contract laboratory, inventory information, including container number, the specimen numbers and the location of each specimen number within each box, is provided by the contract laboratory. This information is automatically entered into the inventory system in preparation for specimen accession. For specimens received from the Air Force lab and for specimens received from other laboratories, specimen number and location information is not automatically entered into the inventory system, requiring manual data entry during processing. During processing, quality control checks will be performed to verify the accuracy of data entry.

During laboratory operations, the contractor shall perform data entry to record retrieved and re-shelved specimens, to track steps in the specimen aliquotting process, to track aliquots prepared for shipment, and to track aliquots re-shelved in the inventory.

The contractor will enter data from a backlog of historical paper manifest records into the computer system as time permits during the operations of the DoDSR. During the data entry, quality control checks will be performed to verify the accuracy of data entry.

**General Repository Operations:**

The contractor shall provide General Repository Operations to include management of the DoDSR personnel and repository operations. The contractor shall provide a Point of Contact for the monitoring system, who shall be available to answer an alarm 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Upon notification from the monitoring system, the designated contractor staff shall immediately report to the repository to correct the problem or alert maintenance personnel. The contractor will provide a Point of Contact for the government with regard to operations of the contract. The repository personnel shall assist the Project Officer with procuring repository supplies through government channels. The contractor must provide dry ice for shipment and FedEx delivery of specimens, if required. The contractor must have the ability to provide specimen storage boxes, if required. The contractor must have the ability to provide miscellaneous supply items, if needed.

**Transportation of Specimens:**

The contractor shall provide Transportation of Specimens from the contract laboratories, currently Centers for Disease Detection [CDD], San Antonio, Texas, the Air Force testing laboratory (located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio) and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (located in Silver Spring, MD) to the DoDSR in Silver Spring, MD.

Specimens from these laboratories are loaded onto carts and are packaged in shrink-wrap by the contract lab prior to transport. Shipments are prepared for transportation approximately once every six to seven weeks during pre-arranged pick-up times.

Occasionally, the contractor shall provide local transportation of specimens and shipments of aliquots to locations within a 70 mile radius of the repository using existing staff and a Government supplied freezer truck.

During all transportation operations, the contractor shall ensure that the storage container and material within a box is maintained at a temperature –25°C or below. The contractor shall report the location and status of shipments under transport, and the estimated arrival or delivery times to the Project Officer, as requested. The contractor shall ensure all problems encountered during transportation operations are documented and reported to the Project Officer immediately.

**Equipment Monitoring**

The contractor shall provide 24 hour, seven days per week Equipment Monitoring for the freezer units and shall provide routine maintenance of the freezers, compressors, generators, cooling towers, and other existing equipment. The contractor shall provide personnel with preventive maintenance experience of walk-in freezers, freezer components, and freezer monitoring systems. All maintenance requests beyond the scope of minor PM or for emergency repair are forwarded to contractor off-site freezer maintenance personnel for appropriate repair service.

**Maintenance**

The contractor shall provide 24 hour, seven days per week emergency Maintenance and repair service for all freezers, refrigeration components, and monitoring equipment.  Preventive maintenance (regularly scheduled maintenance) will be performed on all systems in order to ensure maximum efficiency and reliability.

This acquisition is being conducted under FAR Part 12 Acquisition of Commercial Items. Provisions and clauses in effect through Federal Acquisition Circular are incorporated.

The Armed Forces Health Surveillance Division intends to procure a firm-fixed-contract for a base and four option years for all personnel, equipment, supplies, facilities, transportation, tools, materials, supervision, and other items and non-personal services necessary to perform Operations and Maintenance of The DoD Serum Repository.

The intended procurement will be classified under North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) 811210 with a Small Business Size Standard of $34M. This notice of intent is not a request for competitive proposals and no solicitation document will be posted for this requirement. However, parties interested in responding to this notice shall submit technical data, including cost, sufficient to determine capability in providing the same product. All capability statements received by closing of this notification of this synopsis will be considered by the Government. A determination by the Government not to compete based on responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Information received will normally be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement.

Submit email capabilities statements (using PDF, MS Word, Excel attachments) to Kasey Carroll at kasey.l.carroll.civ@health.mil. Statements are due no later than 1:00 P.M. EST on 20 March 2026. Late responses will not be reviewed.

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