[Protests of NCI Contract Award for Electronic Information Maintenance Services]

B-275065.2,B-275065.3: Feb 12, 1997

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A firm protested a National Cancer Institute (NCI) contract award for electronic information maintenance services, contending that: (1) NCI improperly evaluated the bids; (2) the awardee had an unfair competitive advantage; and (3) NCI's cost realism analysis of the awardee's proposed costs was flawed. GAO held that: (1) NCI properly evaluated the bids in accordance with the solicitation's evaluation criteria; (2) the prior involvement of two NCI evaluators with the awardee in relation to the awardee's contract for a database user satisfaction survey did not constitute a conflict of interest, since the contracts had different scopes of work; (3) the awardee did not have an unfair competitive advantage due to the survey contract, since information gathered from the survey was unrelated to the instant procurement; and (4) NCI reasonably determined that the awardee's proposed labor costs were realistic after certain upward adjustments. Accordingly, the protests were denied.