NMDP- Notice of Upcoming Release of Request for Proposal - 12/4/09
NATIONAL MARROW DONOR PROGRAM®
Notice of Upcoming Release of Request for Proposal
HLA Typing of Registry Donors: Perform HLA-A, B, and DRB1 Typing on Newly Recruited Volunteer Donors for the Be The Match RegistrySM
The National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) anticipates releasing a Request for Proposal (RFP C10-0001) during the first quarter of calendar year 2010 for the purpose of soliciting proposals from qualified laboratories to perform high-volume HLA-A, B, and DRB1 typing, at a minimum of intermediate resolution, on volunteer donor samples. The NMDP maintains the Be The Match Registry of over 8 million volunteer donors, with approximately 27,000 new donors HLA-A, B, and DRB1 typed and added to the Registry each month. This high volume HLA typing program currently consists of six laboratories, testing and electronically reporting results on an average total of 6,800 samples per week. HLA results are required to be reported within 14 days from receipt of the samples. Laboratories must be accredited by the American Society of Histocompatibility (ASHI), and be located within the continental United States to be considered for this program. A majority of the donor samples will consist of cotton-tipped buccal swabs. Additional sample types may include 1ml aliquots of frozen anticoagulated peripheral whole blood, 75ul whole blood spotted and dried on S&S ® 903TM filter paper, frozen cord blood, and cotton-tipped swabs containing B-lymphocytic cells.
The NMDP encourages qualified laboratories to examine this upcoming solicitation and consider this opportunity. Laboratories interested in responding to this RFP are encouraged to complete and return the attached form by December 21, 2009. At the time of release, the RFP will be available at http://bioinformatics.nmdp.org/. A qualifying pre-test will be required of those laboratories that are not currently participating in the NMDP donor recruitment typing program, or current participating laboratories submitting a proposal using a substantially different HLA typing technology. The pre-test will be sent after the release of RFP C10-0001, and will consist of thirty-six samples. There will be four sample types: 75μL of whole blood spotted and dried on S&S 903 filter paper, frozen whole blood aliquots, cotton-tipped swabs containing B-lymphocytic cells and cotton-tipped buccal swabs.
Critical laboratory requirements:
1. Must have the ability to perform HLA-A, B, and DRB1 typing on a minimum of 200 samples per week.
2. Must have the ability to complete and electronically report HLA typing results using Histoimmunogenetics Markup Language (HML). Information about HML can be found at http://bioinformatics.nmdp.org/HLA/HLA_Typing/HML/index.html
3. Must maintain accreditation by the American Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics (ASHI) for HSC/BM Transplantation: Unrelated Donor Histocompatibility Testing for Other Clinical Purposes.
A full explanation of all requirements will be described in RFP C10-0001.
General:
This notice is not a Request for Proposal (RFP) and does not commit the NMDP to award a contract now or in the future. This is an information gathering step to assist NMDP in planning the anticipated RFP timeline, contracting and other activities under this program.
If you have newsworthy information to add to the ASHI Web site, please contact kmiranda@ahint.com for consideration.