The next time you go to bid, use this grid

This isn’t your average bid grid.

Aggregated by David Fenske, industry consultant and expert with over 25 years of experience in biopharma outsourcing, this is a tool for a specific use case. Let’s say you don’t have access to an expensive consultant or an outsourcing management tool, yet you are planning for your next clinical trial(s) – this bid grid is for you..

Having a clear view of competing proposals is key to matching your needs to the right vendor or contract research organization. Any proposal bakes in assumptions around expectations and performance – duration, enrollment, costs, success, failure and more – so standardizing proposals across vendors can give you a sense of which proposal most clearly aligns with your expectations. Or at the very least bring up some interesting conversation points.

Confirming and conforming expectations through a proposal process using this bid grid can help tease out some clarity to the process and put you in a proactive state. Designed with a clinical + financial frame of reference, this tool helps you answer key questions across your proposals.

Why should I use this bid grid?

Using a standardized template offers clarity into what matters. David often finds that vendor cost is contracted without a focus on the goals of the study. “In a large set of contracts I reviewed with Auxilius clients recently, 60% of CRO direct costs were tied to monthly units but nothing was tied to the number of patients. This allows the CRO to get paid for the passage of time, not for work performed, incentivizing them if timelines slip, which is clearly not a setup that serves the study’s goals primarily,” David shared. If the proposal ties costs to months as a unit, you should negotiate and reengineer the incentives toward time-constrained deliverables or successful milestones.

How to use this grid

After you download the grid, open up the file and select the "cover" tab. This tab details instructions for the user: the sponsor will fill out selected specifications and division of responsibilities in the document to guide the CRO; the CRO will fill out required fields, include descriptive comments as needed, and add additional tasks within each functional area. Taken together, this process will help align users within a sensible, straightforward framework.

Get your free bid grid copy below

Naturally, most important question you’ll be answering is how does the bid compare to your expectations, needs, and budget – which proposal is the best for you? Get started by downloading your copy of the bid grid here, complimentary and strings-free: