The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) has further detailed contractor requirements for the “Open Innovation Services for Prizes and Challenges” effort to assist DTRA staff in defining, developing, advertising, and administering a large market stimulatory grand challenge aimed at solving problems related to point-of-care or point-of-need diagnostics for known, emerging, or engineered pathogens.
The agency last month announced an intention to enter into limited competition between responding sources “X Prize Foundation” and the team of “Booz-Allen-Hamilton/Innocentive, Inc.” for the effort.
The selected contractor will be responsible for the conduct of all activities to assist in administering the grand challenge to develop and acquire advanced point-of-need or point-of-care diagnostics.
The Base Period requires the contractor to work with DTRA and DoD representatives to clearly define the problem to be solved; identify technological, commercial, market and any engineering barriers to solving the problem. The contractor will then be charged with identifying potential “solver communities” and generating a challenge prize competition concept and prize structure designed to stimulate the market and overcome the barriers previously identified.
Option Period 1 calls for further development of competition rules including those which stimulate the market to overcome specific challenges in the Point-of-Need or Point-of-Care diagnostics fields including Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) waiver and Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) code award.
This phase also establishes testing and evaluation protocols and address how the offeror will determine an appropriate intellectual property strategy, salient to the scope, technical, and market requirements of the prize competition and which also accomplishes the government’s goals of stimulation of the market and long-term commercial viability and availability of the solution.
The contractor will then develop a public awareness and education campaign and a framework to facilitate collaboration or teaming among potential solvers.
Option Period 2 is the execution of the Grand Challenge competition, testing and evaluation of all solutions submitted, and making reports and recommendations to the Government which solution should be awarded the prize. If the contract period of performance ends before a single solution meets all metrics, the contractor is asked to rank all solutions and recommend to the Government top solutions.
Further details are available under Solicitation Number: HDTRA1-13-R-0012. The proposal deadline for the limited competition candidates is April 8, 2013.
