Cost per Test Equipment, Becton BD BACTEC FX and Bruker MALDI Biotyper for the Infectious Disease Laboratory at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center

This is a Sources Sought notice. This action is being taken to procure BD Diagnostics systems to use reagents to provide patient care support in the Infectious Disease Laboratory. The reagents are proprietary to the manufacturing vendor, BD and are required for use with current installed platforms which are the BACTEC FX, Phoenix M50, Bruker MALDI, and BD Affirm platforms.

Procurement of these reagents through the manufacturing vendor, BD, ensures that the Infectious Disease Laboratory can accurately receive and amend shipments of reagents in a time critical manner as well as order supplies required to ensure continuity of operations. The Infectious Disease Laboratory currently has platforms that are leased from BD and require BD reagents and support. Failure to procure these specific services and products will degrade the patient care capacity of the Infectious Disease Laboratory.

If testing supplies could not be purchased through BD Diagnostics, supplies would have to be purchased through another source, which would violate the terms of the agreement and necessitate removal and replacement of all instrumentation. This would significantly increase operating costs and delay patient testing as new instrumentation requires extensive validations before testing of patient samples can be performed.