Akeso provided procurement and contracting services to support the delivery of core services for this newly established Scientific Research Charity
INSIGHT
Our Future Health, a charity establishing the UK’s largest ever health research programme, designed to enable the discovery of more effective approaches to prevention, detection and treatment of diseases.
The aim of the programme is to recruit 5 million adult volunteers that will provide information about their health, lifestyles and a sample of blood for genotyping and analysis.
Our Future Health required the procurement of services for blood sample processing, Genotype assay design, manufacture, genotyping services and sample storage.
ACTION
Our Future Health were required to operate under PCR15 to procure and contract and without any in-house procurement expertise, the organisation needed to navigate all elements of this complex procurement including development of specifications and evaluation criteria and managing the tender process through to contract.
In addition, the volumes and timescales were still being developed and a solution was needed that could flexibly ramp up to meet the evolving needs of the programme but also needed to start within 8 months.
It was also recognised that some elements of the requirement were very specialist with limited providers. The client needed a solution that would provide the full service but allow for effective competition for all elements.
Akeso&Co supported Our Future Health by coordinating its significant scientific expertise with a PCR2015 compliant foundation in order to deliver this large and complex procurement.
RESULTS
Our Future Health now has the infrastructure in place to be able to process and genotype 5 million samples from the UK population to deliver the largest research programme of its kind. A key objective was to avoid any legal challenge to the process, meet the ambitious timescale whilst ensuring SME participation.
