Notice of Intent for NIH/NCATS (RDCRN) Pantheon Licenses and Support Renewal

THIS IS A NOTICE OF INTENT TO AWARD A SOLE SOURCE CONTRACT, NOT A REQUEST FOR COMPETITIVE QUOTES. A REQUEST FOR QUOTE (RFQ) WILL NOT BE ISSUED AND QUOTES WILL NOT BE REQUESTED.

The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network (RDCRN) intends to award a firm fixed price sole source contract under the authority of FAR 12.102(a), only one source being available to meet the Government's needs, to:

Carahsoft Technology Corp

11493 Sunset Hills Road

Suite 100

Reston, VA 20190

NCATS hereby submits a notice of intent to award a sole source firm fixed price purchase order for the renewal of the existing Pantheon Platform Licenses and Support which includes associated maintenance, upgrades, and technical support, for a twelve (12) month period of performance commencing within thirty (30) days of award.

Pantheon is required as the specified brand name because the RDCRN consortia websites and the network site (www.rarediseasenetwork.org) were built on and are currently hosted within the Pantheon platform, and the renewal continues an established production environment whose configuration, versioning history, automated backups, and Drupal upgrade cadence are natively integrated into Pantheon's proprietary infrastructure. This is not a new requirement. Although this contract is now expired, the requirement remains current and ongoing. Continued access to the platform is necessary to avoid interruption to established scientific and informatics workflows that support NCATS research.   

The platform's specific capabilities—Multidev on-demand development environments, Autopilot automated updates with visual regression testing, Custom Upstreams for template-based site creation, 24/7 technical support, and optional WordPress Multisite support available only on the Gold plan—are proprietary to Pantheon and cannot be replicated by an alternate vendor without migrating all consortia sites, rebuilding development and deployment workflows, and reconstructing the acquisition, analysis, and processing pipeline for scientific data, including data tied to research initiated prior to 1/20/2026. Any substitution would introduce operational downtime, risk to data integrity and visual consistency, and significant re-engineering cost, making Pantheon the only product that meets the Government's need for continuity of the existing hosting system.

The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this requirement is 541519 Other Related Computer Services business size $34M.

The period of performance will be for one (1) 12-month base period from date of award to September 10, 2026 – July 14, 2027.

This notice of intent is not a request for competitive proposals, and no solicitation document exists for the requirement. This hereby constitutes a synopsis of the requirement.

CLOSING STATEMENT

The determination not to compete this proposed contract action is solely within the discretion of the Government. Information received will normally be considered for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement. The Government will not be responsible for any costs incurred by responding to this notice. This is NOT a request for quotes or proposals.

Questions or comments to this Notice of Intent should be directed to the Primary Point of Contact

Leah L. Hinson via e-mail only Leah.Hinson@hhs.gov (no phone calls/voice mail). Messages regarding questions will not be accepted and will not receive a response). Please indicate in the subject of your email: Notice of Intent Question Submission – PCA-NCATS–08266 Pantheon Licenses and Support Renewal.

Contracting Office Address:

Office of Mission Acquisition Solutions (OMAS) 

Office of Acquisitions (OA) | Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources (ASFR)

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 

Primary Point of Contact:

Leah L. Hinson- Leah.Hinson@hhs.gov