Supply of modular, automated liquid handling system (including PC and software) suitable for the routine preparation of samples for TPMT analysis.

Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust is 1 of the largest teaching trusts in the United Kingdom, serving a population of 500 000. The Clinical Biochemistry department serves: the trust, over 120 GP practices including a number of special primary care centres and outreach clinics. The department provides an extensive range of specialist tests including Thiopurine S-Methytransferase (TPMT) enzyme testing, currently based at the City Hospital site.

Companies are invited to respond to a tender for the supply of a modular, automated liquid handling system (including PC and software) suitable for the routine preparation of samples for TPMT analysis. The system must be capable of automating our current manual processes for TPMT sample preparation including sample aliquoting, reagent addition and sample incubation, as well as ensuring the prepared samples are in a format suitable for HPLC analysis at the end of the sample preparation process. The system must also be capable of automated bar-code scanning and generation of sample work sheets which can be transferred directly to our existing HPLC software systems for sample analysis.

The Solution offered should be based on a current workload (2016/17) of approx. 45 000 TPMT samples per annum (up to approx. 200 samples/day) with sufficient capacity for our growing workload which is currently increasing by 15 % per annum.