Ex ante announcement — analyzing instrument for vaccine-induced antibodies.

The department of microbiology and immunology at the University of Gothenburg is currently involved in EU-funded projects that focus on exploring vaccine-induced responses to deepen the existing knowledge. Ongoing research projects are in need of analyzing the affinity and avidity of vaccine-induced antibodies, and to further characterize their specificity for neutralizing/competing epitopes. Due to the particular nature and sensitivity of the clinical samples that will be used in the projects, it is critical for the research results to acquire an analyzing instrument that meet certain research-related and technical requirements. In the description under section ‘Explanation’ you will find further information and the main requirements.

This is an ex-ante announcement regarding a contract award for the instrument Octet K2 from the supplier Pall Fortebio. The instrument is intended to be used in different research projects related to research about the affinity and avidity of vaccine-induced antibodies, to generate different analyzing results according to the researchers specific needs.

Förklaring:

The department of microbiology and immunology at the University of Gothenburg is currently involved in EU-funded projects that focus on exploring vaccine-induced responses to deepen the existing knowledge. Ongoing research projects are in need of analyzing the affinity and avidity of vaccine-induced antibodies, and to further characterize their specificity for neutralizing/competing epitopes. The antibodies (liquid clinical samples) that will be analyzed are sensitive and consist of different antibody-samples where, at the same time, each sample is limited to its quantity. Also, it is crucial for the research project results that the researchers can analyze the same set of clinical samples multiple times — to generate different read-outs from each sample. After having reviewed the market, the University has found that only one instrument (Octet K2 from Pall Fortebio) is able to meet the research-related and technical requirements necessary in these research projects. Compared with other analyzing instruments on the market Octet K2 does not analyze biomolecular interactions by fluidic system, which is suitable for robust and reproducible results/samples; instead it uses another technical feature suitable for sensitive samples (BLI). This feature is critical to assay low quantity clinical samples obtained from a series of important vaccine clinical trials in the research projects. The instrument is exclusive on the market to use the BLI-technology which enables multiple assaying of a wide variety of clinical samples in very low quantity at the same time. Since the company Pall Fortebio has exclusive rights to sell and manufacture this instrument and the rights to the technical features (intellectual property rights such as patent) that are necessary to acquire in order to achieve successful results in ongoing research projects, the University has found no other company that may provide an instrument with similar technical features/characteristics. With reference to the above technical reasons, and to chapter 6 §14 p2 in the Swedish procurement act (SFS 2016:1145), the University has decided to direct-award Pall Fortebio the contract for the purchase of one (1) Octet K2 instrument.

Visma notice: https://opic.com/id/afljjtjhmz