It's been 2 weeks since my initial blog post and it feels like a night and day difference in terms of where we are now vs. then. We are in the midst of a global pandemic. On March 13th, President Trump declared a National Emergency in the USA and we've been in a state of chaos ever since.
Grocery store shelves are empty, schools are closed, bars and restaurants are closing or limiting service, we are all practicing social distancing and just yesterday the White House advised the public to limit groups of more than 10 people.
What a difference in just 14 days.
I thought I would follow up from the previous numbers in my blog to provide an update on what we can find from Federal Data using Fedmine.
Super Search
My last Super Search produced 110 results. This number has now increased to 237 and 90 of these results are coming from this fiscal year. The amount of contract awards has more than doubled since my previous post.
Many of the notices that I'm seeing are notifications for cancellations of Industry Days or Small Business events, etc. This presolicitation that came out on March 15th from DoD is for a potential request for proposals focused on developing prototypes aimed at combating coronavirus (COVID-19).
Here's the solution requirements and areas of interest pulled from the presolicitation:
SOLUTION REQUIREMENTS:
This pre-announcement has been developed by MTEC to provide notice for the possibility of one or more upcoming RPPs focused on combating covid-19. This notice may also help the membership form appropriate partnerships/teaming relationships so that they are poised to respond to the full requirements described in potential upcoming RPPs. CAUTION: These solution requirements have not been formally established by the Government, and are solely MTEC’s interpretation of the critical needs of the U.S. military.
MTEC believes that an emphasis will be placed on technologies that can be deployed as soon as possible but no later than 31 December 2020. In support of this, MTEC has identified the following potential areas of interest:
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- Point-of-care diagnostic that provides rapid and accurate determination on exposure to covid-19.
- Prophylactic(s)/Therapeutic(s) that can prevent and/or treat in a rapid manner (few hours to 2 days) potentially in a non-hospital environment. Repurposing FDA-approved drugs/biologics for prevention/treatment of covid-19 or testing of drugs/biologics that have already demonstrated safety in humans for the prevention/treatment of covid-19 are preferred.
- Disease predictive modeling that provides early warning through data capture from several different streams of data to include social media and artificial intelligence (AI) parameter decision tools that would provide actionable information to medical service providers and command structures.
- Patient monitoring, tracking, and management system for in-home or non-hospital environment patient tele-health services to include interface into the Cerner electronic health record.
Contract Search
I ran my contract search using the same criteria as my last post. The numbers are more than 4 times what they were 2 weeks ago in terms of contract awards. We are now at $17M awarded to 43 companies. HHS is still the top agency with $13.4M from that total.
Looking at the top NAICS being used I came across a NAICS that stood out: 624230 for Emergency and Other Relief Services.
The top award recipient thus far is different from my last search. Medical giant 3M is on top with over $5M in awards, the largest ($4.8M) for the highly coveted N-95 Respirators (masks) we keep hearing about. This was a sole source contract. Something else that I noticed from this award that I have not seen before is the use of FAR 6.302-2 for the reason to not compete this as Full & Open Competition. This FAR clause is for "unusual and compelling urgency". It is defined as:
"When the agency’s need for the supplies or services is of such an unusual and compelling urgency that the Government would be seriously injured unless the agency is permitted to limit the number of sources from which it solicits bids or proposals, full and open competition need not be provided for."
There's also been over $1.37M awarded to NAICS 561720 for Janitorial Services. I checked out the biggest award here and it's from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to a veteran owned company called Alcazar Trades, Inc. The work is for custodial services for a warehouse related to coronavirus.
Many of the companies on the list have health or medical in their names so when I saw the name of a company on the list "IAW Construction" it stood out to me and I wondered what work they had won. This contract is for COVID-19 emergency parking lot expansion in California. It also was made as a Sole Source award and references the FAR 6.302-2 urgency clause.
Another interesting award went to Iron Bow Technologies, Inc. from the Veterans Affairs. This $188k award is for iPads with Verizon data for COVID-19 emergency. Interesting, and I wonder what this would be for? Is it for the use of testing and transmitting that data in a uniformed way?
It will be interesting to see what comes next as this story unfolds. It's crazy to think that we are just on the cusp of what is to come. The federal government remains open and will continue to make necessary awards to help us combat this virus. Trump has announced an $850 relief request from Congress and I'm curious to look into the Grants that come out of this. We'll save that for the next update!
Look for more updates from me on gathering federal data in Fedmine and relating it as this pandemic continues.
