Lateral Flow Devices for Pandemic Preparation

Descriptions

Instructions:
1. The purpose of this document is to enhance the Authority's understanding of the marketplace and its options for sourcing for a potential future requirement.

2. The issuance of this request for information (RFI) does not constitute a sourcing exercise nor will the Authority pay any costs incurred in the preparation of a response to this RFI.

3. The UK Health Security Agency's (UKHSA) key objectives for this RFI are: a. understand the ability of the marketplace to fulfil its requirements; b. refine the scope of the requirements to best align to the marketplace; c. inform the Authority's chosen route to market to best enable competition; d. understand UK's LFD manufacturing ability and capacity; e. understand LFD manufacturing supply chain in regard to what elements are and can be manufactured in the UK ; f. to understand the market's ability of scalable manufacturing capacity in the event pandemic; g. To understand resilience of LFD component supply chain to enable this scale of manufacture at a sustained level; and h. understand the innovation in the marketplace.

4. Should you have any questions or queries relating to this RFI, please use the Atamis portal's messaging centre to direct your questions to us for a response. 

5. If a response is not received by the RFI response deadline this will have no impact on your ability to tender for the opportunity in the future. UKHSA will not enter into contracts on the basis of replies to this RFI.

Scope of this request
To address this UKHSA has been funded by the Cabinet Office Integrated Security Fund to identify and evaluate manufacturers capable of rapidly scalable onshore production of lateral flow tests for pandemic response and increased biosecurity.

To deliver this project we are seeking individual manufacturers or manufacturing partnerships (e.g. Assay development and Assay manufacturing specialists) to respond to this request which will require submission of information on scale of manufacture in the UK and resilience of the component supply chain to manufacture at that scale for the duration of an outbreak, as well as, the usual test performance requirements which the manufacturer will supply.

Following this response from potential manufacturers, we will then review the submissions and where necessary seek further information and assurance through data reviews and audits before selecting suppliers for pilot studies to demonstrate ability to manufacture lateral flow tests for an existing use case e.g. multiplex respiratory antigen lateral flow test by the end of the financial year (31/03/2026).

Should you wish to respond to this Request for Information, please complete the response questionnaire which is found at the following link: https://atamis-1928.my.salesforce-sites.com/ProSpend__CS_ContractPage?SearchType=Projects&uid=a07Sr00000g8e1lIAA&searchStr=&sortStr=Recently+Published&page=1&filters=&County=