Single Source Procurement: Maintenance Service Contract for Nuclear Spectrometer
Pursuant to New York State Finance Law § 163.10(b), The New York State Department of Health is presenting the following summary of relevant circumstances, and material and substantial reasons why a competitive procurement was not feasible.
Wadsworth Center for Laboratories and Research within the New York State Department of Health operates a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) facility which is equipped with two NMR spectrometers. Measurements from this facility have recently been used to assist in the identification of steroid contaminants found in multi-vitamin supplements that were marketed in New York. These spectrometers have also served in the identification and quantification of drug-borne and food-borne toxins. This NMR facility has provided a critical role in determining the chemical structure of several cancer-causing compounds and in the structural analysis of proteins that are involved in regulating various biological signaling processes. These NMR studies are critical to ongoing biomedical investigations in the Wadsworth Center that are directed toward facilitating the design of novel drugs for clinical use. Many of the biological samples analyzed at this facility have limited stability. If no Maintenance Service Agreement is in place, the prolonged instrument downtime that arises from component failures will often result in the loss of valuable biological samples, in addition to the loss in data collection capabilities. Such losses will compromise progress in the programs that depend upon the NMR facility The largest component of the coverage provided by the required Maintenance Service Agreement is the annual maintenance visit for the cryoplatform which was specified as a required support in the original purchase contract. This yearly servicing visit is essential to maintaining the function of the high sensitivity cryoprobe which provides signal detection for the 600 MHz NMR spectrometer. The maintenance of this unit, which involves proprietary instrument components and specialized training, cannot be carried by the Wadsworth NMR facility staff. Termination of the annual maintenance on the cryoplatform will predictably lead to an incapacitating failure for which the subsequent repairs and loss in instrument downtime will exceed the cost of the requested Maintenance Service Agreement. The other two components of the NMR spectrometer covered by the requested Maintenance Service Agreement, the AV four channel electronics console (Parts Support) and the cryoprobe detector itself, have failure rates that are sporadic and unpredictable. However, in the absence of a Maintenance Service Agreement, the cost of obtaining the necessary repairs will be inflated by the unavoidable delays involved in obtaining these repairs without an ongoing Maintenance Service Agreement which will typically add a minimum of several weeks to the downtime of the NMR spectrometer. All of the NMR instrumentation covered by this Maintenance Service Agreement is manufactured and sold by Bruker Biospin, Inc. Bruker Biospin, Inc. is the only manufacturer and vendor of the proprietary components that are required for the repair and replacement of the NMR instrumentation to be covered in the Maintenance Service Agreement. The service functions covered by the requested Maintenance Service Agreement must be carried out by personnel specifically trained for this work, and the highly skilled Bruker personnel are unique in their training and their access to the proprietary instrument components required for the maintenance service agreement.
| Procurement / Program Name | Maintenance Service Agreement for Wadsworth Center Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Facility |
|---|---|
| Contractor Name(s) | Bruker BioSpin |
| Contract Period | 12/01/2015 – 11/30/2018 |
| Contract Number(s) | C029140 |
