The US Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health (NIH) has a continuing requirement for in vitro assessments for antimicrobial activity.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) supports and facilitates research that focuses on understanding, treating and, ultimately, preventing infectious, immunologic, and allergenic diseases that threaten the lives of millions of people. The NIAID Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (DMID) supports and facilitates research to understand, control and prevent human disease caused by infectious agents. Basic, applied, and translational research to develop and assess therapeutics, vaccines, and diagnostics are supported through research grants, cooperative agreements, and contracts. In turn, DMID supports and facilitates these funding mechanisms via an array of resources and services. These programs include bioinformatics, structural biology, biorepositories, biocontainment facilities, and pre-clinical and clinical translational research resources.

In 2019, fourteen (14) institutions were awarded base contracts under the In Vitro Assessments of Antimicrobial Activity (IVAAA) Indefinite-Delivery / Indefinite-Quantity (IDIQ) contract program. Its overarching goal was to provide broad capability in in vitro methods to evaluate activity of candidate countermeasures against the full range of infectious agents in the purview of DMID. The breadth of the existing contractor pool has enabled a rapid and effective response to emerging threats such as SARS-CoV-2 and other emergency preparedness priorities.

The current IDIQ contract program has supported the evaluation of hundreds of candidate countermeasures against bacteria, fungi, and viruses. As such, in response to requests from extramural investigators for early-stage testing of their products, these contracts facilitated critical go/no-go decisions and provided data that permitted advancement of promising countermeasures into further preclinical testing.

• NIAID supports nearly all stages of the product development pipeline from in vitro therapeutic evaluation through advanced therapeutic and vaccine testing and manufacturing using multiple support services contracts.  The anticipated solicitation addresses a critical stage in this pipeline by providing an efficient means to assess the therapeutic potential of compounds through in vitro testing.  The overarching goal of the IVAAA program is to provide capability in a broad range of in vitro testing capabilities to assess promising candidate countermeasures against the more than 270 infectious agents and vectors that are within the purview of DMID.
• In addition to meeting the needs of extramural researchers, it is anticipated that contracts resulting from this solicitation will provide crucial data to be used by NIAID partners at other agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services.  Such data will facilitate the advancement of promising candidate medical countermeasures against priority emerging and bioterror infectious agents to approval or licensure and, in some cases, eventual deposit in the Strategic National Stockpile.
• Task Orders will be awarded pursuant to the following individual Task Areas:
  • Task Area A: Bacteria, Fungi, and Toxins
  • Task Area B: Viruses
  • Task Area C: Parasites and Vectors
  • Task Area D: New Techniques to Culture Difficult-to-Grow Pathogens