NITAAC finally pulls the plug on CIO-SP4
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By
Nick Wakeman
The troubled $50 billion IT contract vehicle has faced hundreds of protests that the agency could never fully resolve.
Is anyone really surprised that the NIH IT Acquisition and Assessment Center has cancelled CIO-SP4 after years of protests?
In a filing with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims on Friday, NITAAC explained that cancelling the contract is in line with President Trump’s executive order, Eliminating Waste and Saving Taxpayer Dollars by Consolidating Procurement.
“As a result of these efforts, HHS has shifted its focus away from re-evaluation of existing offers,” the agency told the court.
NITAAC also plans to extend CIO-SP3 for another year, which would push its expiration date until April 29, 2027.
While NITAAC cites the executive order, problems with the $50 billion contract vehicle long predate the Trump administration.
The first of hundreds of protests began flooding the Government Accountability Office in 2022. For fiscal 2023, GAO reported that CIO-SP4 drove 350 protests.
Most of the challenges centered around the self-scoring methodology NITAAC used as well as how the agency evaluated past performance.
NITAAC took several corrective actions to address the challenges before companies began heading to the courts in early 2024.
Thirty-nine companies eventually had their protests consolidated into a single case. In January 2025, the court sent the case back to NITAAC to evaluate proposals in light of the court’s rulings.
The court extended the so-called “remand” period several times over the last year.
In the Jan. 30 filing, NITAAC said it will take about 30 days to wrap up the cancellation process.