NIH Opens Small Business ‘On-Ramp' to $20B Contract
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By
Frank Konkel
Bids from new small businesses are due by April 18, with awards expected in early 2017.
Small health IT-focused business take note.
The National Institutes of Health released a final request for proposals for on-ramps onto a 10-year government acquisition contract called the CIO-Solutions and Partners 3, or CIO-SP3.
Since 2012, the government has awarded $1.5 billion through the contract for health IT services, which is managed by the NIH IT Acquisition and Assessment Center.
At the moment, 94 companies have awards on the small business set-aside contract, but many have outgrown small business status. Nearing the halfway point of the contract, contract holders will have to re-certify their status as small businesses by 2017, and NIH’s issuance of the on-ramp suggests two to three dozen are no longer small businesses.
Current contract holders will remain on the acquisition vehicle, but agencies using their services won’t get credit for set-aside quotas.
Bids from new small businesses are due by April 18, with awards expected in early 2017.