Industrial Base Sole-Source Award Deficient
Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 04.04.14
In Coulson Aviation (USA) Inc.; 10 Tanker Air Carrier, LLC; Minden Air Corp. (Mar. 31, 2014), GAO agreed with protesters, including one represented by Crowell & Moring, that the U.S. Forest Service had unlawfully awarded a sole-source contract with a potential value of nearly $500 million. After extensive briefing and a two-day hearing, GAO found that the sole-source award was invalid because the true basis for award had been honoring a settlement agreement promise to award the contract and the Justification & Approval supporting the award both (i) improperly relied on the factually inapplicable "industrial base" exception to the full and open competition requirements of the Competition in Contracting Act and (ii) failed to identify the critical facts relevant to the award.
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Client Alert | 7 min read | 09.14.26
AI in Life Sciences: Ten Legal Considerations and Risks of AI Use in Drug Discovery and Development
Over the past several years, the biopharmaceutical industry has embraced artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) in near lockstep with the pace of AI/ML innovations. Today, industry leaders are using AI/ML to, among other things: discover and assess biological pathways, target chemical structures and sequences; design proteins; model pre-clinical and clinical trials; recruit and screen potential patient populations; evaluate clinical trial results and biomarker data; prepare regulatory filings; and manage supply chains. Deployment of new AI/ML models promises extraordinary advances in pharmaceutical development. However, as with any technological and scientific advances, the use of AI/ML also poses substantial legal risks that life sciences companies need to consider and proactively manage.
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