After years of protests, the National Institutes of Health Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center (NITAAC) said on Friday that it is canceling its $50 billion Chief Information Officer-Solutions and Partners 4 (CIO-SP4) IT services contract.
NITAAC told the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in a filing that it is canceling CIO-SP4 to align with President Donald Trump’s executive order that consolidated federal IT contracting under the General Services Administration (GSA).
“NITAAC has been coordinating its efforts with other Executive branch components in this effort. During this time, NITAAC has also conducted an evaluation of the program’s needs,” the court filing reads. “As a result of these efforts, HHS [Department of Health and Human Services] has shifted its focus away from re-evaluation of existing offers.”
That move came after years of protests against the contract. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) received at least 350 protests and supplemental protests.
CIO-SP4 was intended to deliver IT solutions and services in an infinite-delivery, infinite-quantity contract and had a ceiling of $50 billion with a five-year option. It was meant to replace the CIO-SP3 contract, which expired in 2022 but was consistently extended as NITAAC worked through the CIO-SP4 bid protests.
With CIO-SP4 off the table, NITAAC told the claims court that it will extend CIO-SP3 until next year.
Since its launch, CIO-SP4 has encountered several challenges. It was initially set to be released in December 2020 but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Once it was released, the initial round of protests came after NITAAC made late changes to the request for proposals about a week before bids were due, prompting industry and experts to push for a deadline extension and renewed engagement with bidders.
A second wave followed when more than 30 unsuccessful bidders filed protests with GAO after being notified they did not advance to Phase II. The protesters said NITAAC wrongly eliminated proposals based on self-scoring, set an unreasonably high cutoff, and used restrictive or ambiguous solicitation terms, while also allowing revisions they argued violated the ground rules.
CIO-SP4 won the majority of its protests, according to a NITAAC statement made in 2023.
NITAAC said it will finalize the cancellation of CIO-SP4 within the next 30 days.