Through the new broad agency announcement (BAA) Rational Systematic Characterization and Selection of Adjuvants for HIV Vaccine Candidates (R-CASA), NIAID is soliciting contract proposals from offerors capable of providing a broad range of services to investigate vaccine formulations with HIV immunogens and adjuvants.
The R-CASA program will complement and expand NIAID’s Adjuvant Comparison and Characterization program by:
- Expanding the number of HIV immunogens that can be investigated for eliciting broad neutralizing antibodies as well as relevant T cell responses.
- Expanding the number of clinically relevant adjuvants that can be investigated.
- Investigating the effects of alternative immunization strategies and regimens (e.g., escalating dosing, viral vectors, immunogens).
Successful offerors will develop new approaches to assess optimal HIV immunogens-adjuvants formulations prior to transitions into clinical trials. Thus, offerors should propose to:
- Generate and propose standardized protocols and endpoint assays for rational and systematic down-screening of HIV immunogen-adjuvant formulations.
- Apply those protocols and assays to screen HIV immunogen-adjuvant formulations.
- Screen additional immunogens and adjuvants at the direction of NIAID.
In combination, these efforts will delineate a standardized set of assays for biochemical and immunological characterization of HIV immunogen-adjuvant formulations, down-selection workflow, and go, no-go criteria to maximize successful transitions of immunogen-adjuvant formulations from preclinical testing to First-in-Humans trials.
Your proposal should explain how you will contribute to the objectives described above. Contracts awarded through this BAA will include a statement of work proposed by you as the offeror and then negotiated and accepted by the government. Review the R-CASA BAA linked above for a complete list of research and technical objectives, as well as the corresponding technical evaluation criteria.
NIAID estimates making one or two awards, each with $2 million average annual total costs. The proposed period of performance should reflect the complexity of the proposed research, but not exceed 5 years.
The deadline to submit an offer is June 21, 2023, at 4 p.m. Eastern Time.
If you have any questions about the BAA, contact Kishan Patel, NIAID contracting officer, at patelki@niaid.nih.gov or 301-451-4334.