I'm back with a part 3 update of my Federal Data on Coronavirus blog. It's crazy to me that this has now become a series with so much new information unfolding each week. I didn't I realize when I first set out to blog about this just what was really happening and how impactful this pandemic would end up being, not only to government contractors, but to the whole wide world.
So here we are, day 31 of what has felt like the longest month of all time. If you're new to this blog series here are my previous posts so you can get updated:
Since my last post there's been some good news of things slowing down in China; some expected news of the 2020 Olympics being delayed until 2021; and some major news as the congress passed a historic $2 Trillion stimulus package. Wow.
The whole world is at home and adjusting to this new sense of "normalcy". I'm currently writing this blog listening to my 9 year old practice piano and that is not something I would have expected for 12pm on a Tuesday :)
Anyway, let's get into the data to see where we are.
Super Search
My Super Search shows that coronavirus/covid-19 related procurement has increased now over 1100 entries. Things have picked up exponentially over the last 2 weeks. Contract awards alone have now jumped to almost 8 times what they were (this is not taking into account the 90 day lag for FPDS-NG DoD awards).
Source: Fedmine as of 3/31/2020
When I click into a few of the notices I see that a lot of them are just referencing COVID-19 and noting that they are monitoring the situation, so these don't all directly relate to fighting the virus. Super Search will pull in all types of documents and highlight where the keyword is found. I noticed 15 J&A's have been released and here's an example of the first one I checked. I found it interesting because it's justifying the use of a Sole Source and will utilize the FEMA Disaster Relief funds:
"In support of Presidential National Emergency Declaration Concerning the Novel coronavirus Disease (Covid-19) Outbreak, on 13 March 2020, approval is requested for a Justification and Approval (J&A) to award one Firm Fixed Price (FFP) Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity, Architect-Engineering Design Services Contract, to Morphy, Makofsky, Inc, 336 N. Jefferson Davis Pkwy, New Orleans, La 70119, for an other than full and open competition/sole-source basis. The action will be awarded as a Firm Fixed Price (FFP) Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity, Architect-Engineering Design Services Contract. The type of funds utilized will be Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) Disaster Relief funds. There are no planned options identified for the contract."
The J&A includes a signed PDF that any Fedmine user can download to get access to more information. I downloaded this document and have provided it here.
It's no surprise when looking at the current solicitations that many of them are looking for PPE. Personal Protective Equipment is in high demand and will require a large increase in manufacturing.
In my previous blog post I added the MTEC Presolicitation focused on combating coronavirus to my Fedmine Pipeline. There have been no modifications to this Presolicitation, but I will be watching my Pipeline alerts as they come in and will report back when there's any mod made.
Contract Search
Moving over to my contract search, we are now at over $1B in awards made! Crazy how this has really accelerated over this period. One new change that has occurred is the addition of the National Interest Action for Covid-19. Contracts are now being awarded under this NIA code P20C. See White House memo from March 20th, here.
Jansen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has been awarded the bulk of these awards with over $600 million. The two contract awards show they are working on research for a Covid-19 vaccine. Though they've had consistent awards from HHS over the years, their Fedmine Company Profile shows major growth for them this year with these two contracts.
I ran my search again, this time forgoing the keywords and only using the National Interest Action Code. See my summary below of what's been awarded since that NIA Code became available.
Source: Fedmine as of 03/31/2020
One aspect I wanted to touch on in this post is Federal Grants data and what we can conclude from those. Grants.gov is one of Fedmine's 17 federal sources of data. We have a daily feed and pull grants information going back to 2001. Fedmine makes it easy to view grants data in various ways, including by State, Congressional District, Agency and Place of Performance.
I decided to use keywords to see what's been awarded in grants so far. My query came back with 8 transactions and over $7M in grants. The largest grant recipient is Vanderbilt University Medical Center, with a grant for over $4M from the NIH for "Determinants of coronavirus fidelity in replication and pathogenesis". It's really interesting to look into these grants and see what they are for. All of them are using the CFDA Program Title "Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research".
Source: Fedmine as of 03/31/2020
The University of Wisconsin System has been awarded a grant of $248k from the NIH to study the "structural studies of the coronavirus life cycle" - how interesting!
Clicking on the Fedmine ID of any grantee company will take you to their Fedmine Grantee Company Profile. This is where you can see the summary of all grants awarded broken down by agency and by fiscal year. Here's an example of the University of Maryland's Grantee Profile.
I will continue to monitor and track these rapid changes in this unprecedented time. Here's to all of the major steps being taken to fight this virus, may they be purposeful and driven in science and strategy to fend off this invisible enemy.
*contract awards do not fully account for DoD FPDS-NG awards as they have not yet been reported due to 90 day lag
