---
title: "Laboratory Information System Upgrade"
ocid: "ocds-h6vhtk-058aed"
canonical_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/?ocid=ocds-h6vhtk-058aed"
markdown_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-058aed.md"
json_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-058aed.json"
source: "Find A Tender Service"
current_stage: "Award"
buyer: "ANIMAL AND PLANT HEALTH AGENCY"
published: "2025-09-30"
---

# Laboratory Information System Upgrade

Buyer: ANIMAL AND PLANT HEALTH AGENCY  
Current stage: Award  
OCID: ocds-h6vhtk-058aed

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## Summary

The Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), a central government public authority based in London, is initiating a process to upgrade its Laboratory Information Management System (SampleManager) from version 12.1 to 21.3. This upgrade aims to ensure the management of animal disease outbreaks and international trade by maintaining disease-free status through improved surveillance. The procurement process is at the award stage as of 30th September 2025, with a direct procurement method employed due to the software's exclusive intellectual property ownership by ThermoFisher Scientific. The contract commenced on 3rd September 2025, with potential extensions up to September 2027.

This tender provides significant business growth opportunities, especially for large organisations adept in IT services such as consulting, software development, and support. Companies with a focus on niche software solutions, particularly those related to laboratory information systems, would be well-suited to engage with such contracts. Though this particular procurement was directly awarded to ThermoFisher Scientific, similar future opportunities could arise for those capable of offering alternative technologies or complementary services that align with statutory surveillance and testing requirements.

## Notice

The SampleManager is the software for the Laboratory Information Management Service system is used extensively for recording animal submissions, samples and testing, facilitates reporting of disease test results and underpins statutory disease testing for notifiable diseases, reportable diseases and other zoonotic diseases (human impacting diseases with primary biological reservoir in animals). This system is critical to APHA's management of animal disease outbreaks and assuring and facilitating international trade by demonstrating sufficient surveillance for disease-free status. The purpose of this Transparency Notice is to announce APHA's intention to enter into a contract to upgrade the SampleManager current version (12.1) which is now out of support to 21.3 version for a year with 12 months extend options.

### Procurement Information

Thermo Electron Ltd are the sole owners and licensor of SampleManager software, and there are no alternatives available to Animal and Plant Health Agency without rewriting all forecasting models. It is the view of the Animal and Plant Health Agency that this contract is justifiable under Paragraph 5 in Schedule 5 of the Procurement Act 2023 to award the contract for the supply and support of the SampleManager software because, ThermoFisher Scientific own the intellectual property for the software, and there are no reasonable alternative, nor can another organisation supply and support the software. Additionally, it is the view of the Animal and Plant Health Agency that this contract is also justifiable under Paragraph 6 in Schedule 5 of the Procurement Act 2023 to award the contract for the supply and support of the SampleManager software because, at this time, no alternative solution is available and any decision to deviate from this software would require a redevelopment of all Animal and Plant Health Agency models, therefore competition is absent for technical reasons.

## Key Details

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Publication source | Find A Tender Service |
| Latest notice | https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/060848-2025 |
| Notice type | UK7 - Contract Details Notice |
| Procurement type | Standard |
| Procurement category | Services |
| Procurement method | Direct |
| Procurement method details | Direct award |
| Tender suitability | SME |
| Awardee scale | Large |
| All stages | Award |

## Dates

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Publication date | 30 Sep 2025 |
| Submission deadline | Not specified |
| Future notice date | Not specified |
| Award date | 20 Aug 2025 |
| Contract period | 2 Sep 2025 - 2 Sep 2026 |
| Recurrence | Not specified |

## Values

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Tender value | Not specified |
| Lots value | Not specified |
| Awards value | £462,143 |
| Contracts value | £462,143 |

## Status

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Tender status | Complete |
| Lots status | Complete |
| Awards status | Active, Pending |
| Contracts status | Active |

## Buyer

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Main buyer | ANIMAL AND PLANT HEALTH AGENCY |
| Locality | LONDON |
| Post town | South West London |
| Postcode | SW1P 4DF |
| Country | England |
| ITL 1 | TLI London |
| ITL 2 | TLI3 Inner London - West |
| ITL 3 | TLI35 Westminster and City of London |
| Local authority | Westminster |
| Electoral ward | St James's |
| Westminster constituency | Cities of London and Westminster |
| Delivery location | Not specified |

## Supplier

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Number of suppliers | 2 |
| Supplier names | THERMO ELECTRON; THERMOFISHER SCIENTIFIC |

## CPV Codes

### Divisions

- 72 - IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support

### Codes

- 72000000 - IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support
- 72212517 - IT software development services

## Release History

- 30 Sep 2025 at 11:19 - Award - UK7 - Contract Details Notice - https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/060848-2025
- 24 Sep 2025 at 11:53 - Award - UK6 - Contract Award Notice - https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/059238-2025
- 20 Aug 2025 at 08:45 - Award - UK5 - Transparency Notice - https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/050021-2025

## Documents

- https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/060848-2025
  30th September 2025 - Contract details notice on Find a Tender
- https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/059238-2025
  24th September 2025 - Contract award notice on Find a Tender
- https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/050021-2025
  20th August 2025 - Transparency notice on Find a Tender

## Notice URLs

- https://defra-family.force.com/s/Welcome
- https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/54/contents

## Provenance

This Markdown file is an alternate public rendering of the D3 Tenders contract record. The canonical page is https://d3tenders.com/contract/?ocid=ocds-h6vhtk-058aed. The underlying structured data is available as OCDS JSON at https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-058aed.json.