Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2017-12-19
Buyer: The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trusts
Country: UK
Contract type: Supplies
Procedure: Contract award without prior publication
CPV classification: 33100000
Estimated value: 820000 GBP

Technical requirements: The NovaSeq 6000 System provides the throughput, speed, and flexibility to complete next-generation sequencing (NGS) projects faster and more economically than ever before. A choice of 3 flow cell formats, multiple read length configurations, and the ability to run 1 or 2 flow cells simultaneously enable data output ranging from 160-6000 Gb per run, providing flexibility across a broad range of applications and study sizes. The NovaSeq 6000 System combines unmatched system output with rapid run times to deliver the highest daily throughput of any NGS system currently available. With preconfigured reagent cartridges, RFID-encoded consumables, a choice between fully automated on board cluster generation and an individual lane loading workflow, the NovaSeq 6000 System provides simple, streamlined production-scale sequencing of genomes, exomes, transcriptomes and numerous other library types.
Purchase of NovaSeq 6000 Sequencing System with installation and training and 12 months warranty including parts and labour.
Purchase of Illuminia Product Care NovaSeq 6000 comprehensive plan which includes full coverage for parts, labour and travel for 3 years contract.
Purchase of Illumina Product Care NovaSeq 6000 comprehensive plan upgrade includes full coverage for parts, labour and travel.
The Trust is seeking a NS sequencing system which will be able to process a high capacity of activity and to facilitate this wishes to award a contract to Illumina Cambridge Ltd.
NHS England has stated unequivocally that NHS cancer testing should move to a gene panel model. An investigation of the local testing portfolio suggests that > 70 % of the Trust's current range of tests could be condensed into a single gene panel. Were this the case, the Trust would need the capacity to run up to 150 tests per week. The trust lacks the capacity to perform this volume of work on the current instruments, even if it did, the reagent costs would significantly exceed the costs of current testing.
To achieve the goal of efficient, cost effective workflows the Trust requires a very high capacity instrument to increase throughput, reduce turnaround times for reporting to molecular tumour boards, by purchasing a system that has a 1 day turnaround time (4 days for the full process DNA to data), generates up to 3 Tb of data (20 billion reads) per run and has cost effective reagent costs.
The NovaSeq would most likely be run in house using the S1 or S2 flowcells, with a capacity of 500Gb or 1 Tb respectively. There are no other competing systems on the market with anything approaching this capacity. In fact the closest instrument is also an Illumina machine (Hiseq 4000), which has less flexibility and lower capacity. Switching to a “universal” gene panel will allow an optimal workflow as all cancers will go on the same panel. This is likely to be around 250 genes. The Trust's best current platform could only run 8 sample pairs of such a panel per mid-output run at a cost of £650 per sample pair. The NovaSeq could run 94 sample pairs of a 250 gene panel for £250 (i.e. £1 per gene per sample).
This is the only instrument on which the Trust could realistically run ctDNA sequencing for clinical purposes at sufficient depth to be clinically relevant.


Winner: Illumina Cambridge Ltd
Award value: 820000