Preventive maintenance-repair service for Thermo Orbitrap Exploris MS instrument

This is a Sources Sought Notice (SSN) - a market survey designed to collect written information only. This is not a solicitation announcement for proposals and no contract will be awarded from this announcement. No reimbursement will be made for any costs associated with providing information in response to this announcement or any follow-up information requests. There is no RFQ, or other iteration of a solicitation associated with this Notice, and no telephone calls will be accepted requesting an RFQ package or solicitation. To protect the procurement integrity of any future acquisition that may arise from this announcement, information regarding a government technical point of contact will not be given and no appointments for presentations will be made.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Office of Acquisitions and Grants Services (OAGS) issues this Sources Sought announcement on behalf of the National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR), Division of Systems Biology (DSB), to determine the presence of small business sources capable providing a preventive maintenance-repair (PM/R) service agreement for a Thermo Scientific Orbitrap Exploris MS system, S/N:  MM10285C, to include the following:  Vanquish Split Sampler FT, S/N:  8330951; Vanquish Binary Pump, S/N:  8330828. 

The Division of Systems Biology (DSB) operates within the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR) to address mission-critical regulatory research needs, knowledge gaps, and emerging health threats using systems-biology approaches and innovative technologies in several areas. 

To conduct its research DSB relies heavily on the Thermo Scientific Orbitrap Exploris MS system described herein and is continuously employed for lipidomics and metabolomics analysis in the Center for Metabolomics also located at NCTR.  With such a heavy workload, it’s critical that this system always operate optimally, so a PM/R agreement is essential to its continuing performance.  This requirement is for a base year and 2 option periods of service. The system is currently covered through 8/27/2026.

If your firm is considered a small business source under North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) 811210 – Electronic and Precision Equipment Repair and Maintenance; with a Small Business Size Standard of $34 Million, and you believe that your firm would be able to provide the FDA with the service described below, please submit an email containing capability statement(s) to timothy.walbert@fda.hhs.gov. Other than small business concerns are also encouraged to submit capability statements. The vendor shall include information about the company and demonstrate that it can meet all the following minimum performance requirements.

Minimum Technical Requirements are as follows for preventive maintenance service for a Thermo Scientific Orbitrap Exploris MS system, S/N:  MM10285C, to include a Vanquish Split Sampler FT, S/N:  8330951; and Vanquish Binary Pump, S/N:  8330828:

*One (1) planned on-site preventive maintenance visit for routine certification and/or calibration per contract year (standard PM kit included);

*Priority access to technical support (e-mail and telephone) Mondays - Fridays (excluding Federal Holidays) between the hours of 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM Eastern Time;

*10% discount on rates for engineer labor, travel, and factory-certified replacement parts for on-demand on-site corrective maintenance visits with a targeted response time of 5 business days; *Priority status for technical support inquiries with a targeted immediate response time; shall include remote diagnosis and corrective maintenance procedures with latest digital remote support tools;

*Direct Access by the FDA Technical Representative (TR) and/or system operator personnel to the manufacturer’s call center (Unity Lab Services Online Knowledge Base) for technical assistance, which is staffed by senior engineers to provide a high level of expertise for troubleshooting the instrument;

* Software and firmware updates as required by the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) either remotely or in conjunction with a scheduled preventive maintenance or corrective maintenance visit (updates are defined as changes of the existing software version that are intended to improve its performance);

*All maintenance activities shall be performed by formally trained and certified technicians and/or engineers, following OEM specifications, manuals, and service bulletins, using OEM replacement parts, components, subassemblies, etc.;

*All preventive maintenance and/or repair service pricing shall be inclusive of labor, travel, replacement parts, components, subassemblies, etc.

Service Records and Reports

*The Contractor shall, commensurate with the completion of each service call or preventive maintenance visit, provide the end-user of the equipment and the Contracting Officer with a copy of a field service report/ticket identifying the equipment name, manufacturer, model number, and serial number of the equipment being serviced/repaired and detailing the reason for the service call, a detailed description of the work performed, the test instruments or  other equipment used to affect the repair or otherwise perform the service, the name(s)  and contact information of the  technician who performed the repair/service, and for information purposes, the on-site hours expended and parts/components replaced.

Period(s) of Performance

Estimated periods of performance are as follows, and are subject to change based on date of award, if any:

Base Year:                    8/28/2026 through 8/27/2027

Option Year 1:             8/28/2027 through 8/27/2028

Option Year 2:             8/28/2028 through 8/27/2029

Place of Performance

The equipment is located and shall be maintained at the National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR) at the following address:

US FDA/NCTR

3900 NCTR Rd., Bldg. 14, Room 14-1065

Jefferson AR 72079

Responses to this Sources Sought shall unequivocally demonstrate that the respondent is regularly engaged in the sale of same or substantially similar service.  Though the target audience is small business vendors or small businesses capable of supplying a U.S. product/service of a small business vendor or producer, all interested parties may respond. At a minimum, responses shall include the following:

• Business name and bio, Unique Entity ID (SAM) number, business address, business website, business size status (i.e., SB, VOSB, SDVOSB, HUBZone SB, SDB, WOSB, LB), point of contact name, mailing address (if different from business address), phone number and email address. Provide this same information again if responding to provide a service offered by another firm;
• Past Performance (within the last 3 years) information for the sale of same or substantially similar product/service to include date of sale, description, dollar value, client name, client address, client contact name, client point of contact mailing address (if different from that provided for client), client point of contact phone number, client point of contact email address, and name of the manufacturer (to include SAM Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) and size status) if not the respondent;
• Descriptive literature, brochures, marketing material, etc. detailing the nature of the service the responding firm is regularly engaged in manufacturing or selling;
• The offeror shall furnish sufficient technical information necessary for the Government to conclusively determine that the offered products/services meet the technical requirements identified above;
• The offeror’s capability to initiate service within 3 days of original notification. Estimated historical on-site response time for the brand name and model of instrument in this requirement;
• If applicable, identification of the firm's GSA Schedule contract(s) by Schedule number and SINs that are applicable to this potential requirement are also requested;
• If applicable, identification of Best in Class (BIC) contract information or other Government-wide or HHS-wide contracts that the equipment/service is available under;
• If a large business, provide whether subcontracting opportunities exist for small business concerns;
• Standard commercial warranty and payment terms;
• Provide place of product manufacture or service performance and any other applicable information to enable review and analysis pertaining to the Buy American statute and requirements relating to Made in America in the event a nonavailability waiver request through the MIAO Digital Waiver Portal is required;
• Though this is not a request for quote, informational pricing for the equipment/service would be helpful for market research purposes.

The Government is not responsible for locating or securing any information not identified in the response.

Interested Contractors must respond with capability statements submitted ONLY by email on or before 2:00pm (Central Time in Jefferson AR) on March 20, 2026 to Tim Walbert at timothy.walbert@fda.hhs.gov. Please reference 75F40126SSN132895 in the Subject line of the e-mail.

Disclaimer and Important Notes

This notice does not obligate the Government to award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in response. The Government reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate. Any organization responding to this notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed to allow the Government to determine the organization’s qualifications to perform the work.

Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. After a review of the responses received, a pre‐solicitation synopsis or combined synopsis/ solicitation may be published on SAM.gov – Contracting Opportunities. However, responses to this notice will not be considered adequate responses to a solicitation.

Confidentiality and Proprietary Information

No proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your response. The Government reserves the right to use any non‐proprietary technical information in any resultant solicitation(s).

Additional Notes:

If the stated requirements appear restrictive, please submit comments detailing the concern.  Though this is not a request for quote, informational pricing for the service would be helpful.