NIH contracting arm announces sunset of all governmentwide vehicles

A National Institutes of Health contracting arm responsible for a series of large-scale IT contracting vehicles is ending all of its cross-government contracts and ceasing all functions by the end of 2028, according to a notice from the agency.

All of the governmentwide acquisition vehicles (GWACs) under the NIH Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center (NITAAC) will expire Oct. 29, which is also the last day to award new orders, the Tuesday announcement stated. That includes the office’s ongoing iterations of its Chief Information Officer-Solutions and Partners contracts. The functions will be moved to the General Services Administration.

“We sincerely thank you for your dedicated partnership and exceptional support from 2012 to 2026. Your contributions have been vital to advancing federal IT infrastructure,” NITAAC’s announcement said.

The announcement comes after the Trump administration’s push to consolidate procurement led to a decision earlier this year to cancel NITAAC’s long-running and embattled next iteration of its governmentwide IT vehicle, known as CIO-SP4. That contract would have been worth roughly $50 billion, but faced numerous legal challenges and was delayed time and time again before it was ultimately scrapped. 

In a February update to the SAM.gov page for the vehicle, the agency cited President Donald Trump’s executive order on procurement consolidation, saying the decision to end the solicitation came after a strategic review to align with that policy. The agency stated that it determined the contract was “now redundant to existing GSA solutions and proceeding with this procurement is no longer in the government’s best interest.” 

Now, the ongoing vehicles will sunset.

Those contracts are CIO-SP3, CIO-SP3 Small Business, and CIO-CS, another IT contract vehicle, per the announcement. 

On Monday, a period of performance restriction began for new orders on current contracts. Under that restriction, they can’t extend past Dec. 31, 2028. Then, new orders will stop Oct. 29. Finally, the Department of Health and Human Services and NIH will “cease all NITAAC program functions” after Dec. 31, 2028. 

NITAAC didn’t provide a comment in response to FedScoop’s requests. GSA, however, indicated it’s preparing for the move.

“GSA has been collaborating with NIH over the last several months and is ready to handle their customer projects, ensuring continuous IT procurement support across the government,” a GSA spokesperson told FedScoop in a statement. 

As part of that process, the spokesperson said GSA updated the health IT special item numbers on its Multiple Award Schedule and offered training on its own IT solutions, including GWACs.