Notice

F.A.Q. - Mobile Evidential Drug Testing Instrument (MEDTI) Demonstrator

Updated 16 April 2024

Q. Do we need to hold a licence for ‘drugs’ and testing equipment?

A If a company or organisation possesses, manufactures, produces or supplies controlled drugs in England, Wales or Scotland they will need to apply for a domestic licence (including where they are not physically handling but are directing and / or taking ownership).

Innovators may work directly with organisations that hold the required licences, but depending on the nature of their contractual relationship, may too require licensing.

The ‘exempt product’ definition as set out in Regulation 2 of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 may provide limited exemptions for organisations, but only where the materials in the organisations’ possession, including any reference materials or surrendered material, falls squarely in this definition.

Companies are advised to take their own independent legal advice as necessary. Any further issues can be dealt with on an individual basis.

Q. What biological matrices can we consider for use as an evidential sample for drug driving?

A. Please read the full explanation within the Research and analysis article that was published on Gov.UK

Review of oral fluid: alternative biological matrices for drug driving

Q. Can you provide clarification on £2000 cost price quoted for hand held device?

A. The £2000 estimate quoted in the competition document was referring to the cost of the roadside handheld device only. If successful, the handheld device would need to be relatively low cost (as close to £2000 estimate cost) for the device to be rolled out in every police car.

There is not an estimated cost for the station based machine but it is likely to have a higher cost. We imagine there would be at least one per police force so not as many would be required.

For either challenge, if any costs are known please explain any associated costs. E.g. disposable items.

Q. Are you open to organisations partnering and submitting a collaborated bid?

A. Yes, you can partner with other organisations to submit a joint bid for this competition. To support this we have a short survey to collect details of those who wish to explore collaboration possibilities. If you are interested in a collaboration, please complete the survey by 5th April 2024 and your details will be circulated among other potential suppliers who have completed the survey and are interested in collaborating.

Please note that any agreements will need to be arranged prior to the proposal submission. Only one proposal needs to be submitted with an agreed lead applicant selected, with partner organisations listed as subcontractors. We would also recommend clearly stating within the proposal the responsibilities of each organisation involved.

Q. Will you accept proposals from innovators or organisations that are not from the UK?

A. Yes, we accept proposals from outside the UK, and people inside UK who are not UK citizens. We want to hear from all innovators, to help solve this UK problem.

The customer is the Department for Transport (UK Government), but we are open to innovative solutions coming from outside of the UK. Please contact the International DASA Innovation Partner by registering for a DASA account, if you haven’t already done so, and submitting an Enquiry Form via the ‘Contact DASA’ link.

Q. Does the project need to cover all 16 (illegal + legal) drugs mentioned in the project requirements? Is it enough to prove POC in up to half of the 16 targets?

A. The short answer is yes.

The longer answer is do you have something that works for some, if not all of the unlawful substances?

Most people would expect concentration on the illegal drugs, cannabis and cocaine. The competition document details other drugs such as medicinal drugs that that are often abused.

Not saying that it is less safe for illegal drugs than abused prescription drugs, both can cause unsafe drivers. It may be that we have to potentially adopt a couple of processes. It may be that there needs to be a further tests for some of the substances that cannot be tested. If you’re concentrating on five or six or seven potential samples I think it’s having a look at what what’s out there to enable us to have a look at the processes that we have.

If you look at the law as it currently stands, you have the offense of driving above prescribed limits and which at the moment is a 0 tolerance level. There is a set level which is unfitness for abused prescription drugs. And another offence of driving whilst unfit through drink or drugs, what then happens is the suspect is arrested. Blood is then sent away for testing, there are allowances for other substances that people can abuse, such as, the current trend of using nitrous oxide. Nitrous Oxide is not includes a one of the 16 illegal drugs listed, if you consider it there are 16 or 17 drugs at the moment. If a driver takes nitrous oxide they will be unfit to drive and will be a danger in the world.

There may be processes that we need to think about and adopt that doesn’t do away with how we deal with matters at the moment, because you’re always going to get new drugs coming on the market, perhaps quicker than law enforcement can catch up with them.

The competition is looking for those that are currently illegal and the levels. However, if there is something that actually could be rolled out that would deal with the major ones, it may still be a significant improvement on what we’ve got. It would go towards our aspiration for swift injustice and make it easier for the police and courts to enforce. We’re interested in seeing what is out there, what is feasible, and then we can make further decisions later on from there.

Q. If we are proposing to test other matrices, such as sweat or oral fluids, how do we convert the given threshold limits to the new matrix?

A. What we will be doing in the future, is bringing in the drug driving legislation. This involves an expert panel chaired by Professor Kim Wolff, which looks at the levels that would be required to bring it in into law.

Professor Kim Wolff has actually undertaken a second piece of work, looking at alternative matrices where they have done some of this work already, it is a published paper that’s available online. It is very much stating that potential has been anticipated a few years ago.

It may be that we need to go back and revisit that, but the front end of the process that we’re after is something that could be capable of being used.

Sweat and oral fluids have been mentioned, these are things that could be considered going forward that if we got something that potentially could work, it would enable government what changes may be needed, if at all and if we need to consider an expert panel? And perhaps reconvened to set levels for the matrices that that we have already.

It will mean other processes being brought in at a later date, such as an approval process would need to be designed by the Home Office or the Government system. We hope this competition allows us to see what potentially could be developed to be used. We do appreciate that there may be other things that need to be done and undertaken before anything becomes operational but those things will be considered.

Q. Are real world (or other) samples available from a common source for the development and evaluation periods?

A. Are you referring to samples of the drugs or are you referring to other bits and pieces? Now if I take it from other samples then unfortunately I do not have the technical capability to be able to answer what is licensed for experimental purposes. I think that’s something that from a technical perspective, we would have to take away and have a look.

Please could the individuals send it through an email, setting the question and then we can have a look and discuss that with you in the future. I would encourage similar questions go through an innovation partner. You can send a broader question and or even a book a one to one session as well.

Q. Reaching TRL 5-7 within 6 month is a very tough challenge. Which TRL do you expect the suggested technology to be at the start of the project?

A. We deliberately didn’t specify a start TRL because we did not want to limit the innovations being proposed by our applicants.

The aim is to achieve at least TRL 5 at the end of the DASA-funded phase. You can also aim for TRL 6 or 7, but we recognise that this would be a big step up from TRL 5. If you’re aiming to be finishing at a later TRL, then we’d expect that your start TRL was higher. You can start at whichever lower TRL is appropriate for your technology development, but please be mindful that the maximum project duration is six months, so you need to align your start TRL so that you can achieve your stated end TRL within the timeframe of the DASA-funded project.

Q. How do we get in touch?

A. The best way to contact DASA is to register for an account, if you haven’t already done so, and submit an Enquiry Form using the ‘Contact DASA’ link.

The postcode/country you input when you register for an account will automatically direct your form to your correct regional Innovation Partner, and then they will contact you and you can liaise with them as needed throughout the submission process.

Q. Would a ‘Station Based Evidential System’ that was multi-purpose be desirable? i.e. bulk drug tester, trace detection of packages, envelopes, etc.

A. That would be interesting if you could. However, we are after something that will be specific for drug driving and drug driving levels. It may well be that there’s different types of tests that you use. Trace detection of packages, envelopes.

If you can come up with something that’s multipurpose that would be terrific, but the process of this competition is to come up with something that could be used specifically for drug driving.

Q. Oral Fluid sampling followed by lab analysis. This is common in workplace, USDOT and SAMHSA drug detection and measurement.

A. As a statement, if there is something that’s out there that you could consider bringing to us as part of this competition.

If you were looking to repurpose a detection system that has already been developed (high TRL) then you would need to demonstrate how you will optimise this to meet the requirements as stated in the Competition Document. This could be an example of where you are already at a fairly high TRL and would achieve TRL 5, 6 or 7 within this competition.

The wording of the competition document was designed to make it as open as possible so that we don’t miss a potentially promising solution and we would encourage you to submit technical queries/points of clarification directly to the competition team via your Innovation Partner solution.

Q. Is £2000 the target cost for the station-based system (the same as the roadside test)?

A. No that is only an estimated cost for the handheld roadside device.

Have to look at what is feasible, what’s economically viable, that I don’t think you’re going to be looking at a machine costing £1,000,000 suddenly appearing in a police station?

That will be a non-economic purchasing decision for police and would probably require considerable additional funding.

Looking at what’s out there, the economics and the potential cost must be one of the factors that we would consider in taking anything from development to being rolled out and procured.

Q. The challenge 1 states that confirm results 100%, does this mean no error is acceptable? The antibody/antigen detection method will be ruled out?

A. The 100% is referring to the sampling and testing (with a confirmed result) being carried out entirely at the roadside, with no further reliance on secondary testing (e.g. at the local police station). Thus, the police officer conducting the test will be able to carry out the entire testing procedure at the roadside and receive confirmation (or not) of the presence of a panel of drugs.

We are not requiring that the testing regime has 100% accuracy, but obviously the lower the rate of false positives (and false negatives) then the better. If your test system has a very low rate of accuracy then that’s clearly not going to meet an ‘evidential’ threshold.

We recognise that any test is going to be subject to false negative and false positive results, and therefore we would request that you specify the limits of your proposed testing regime and then we’ll determine if that’s acceptable for evidential use.

The challenge areas within the competition document are very ambitious, and would be a significant improvement to the current system, we invite innovators to contact us and send in an Expression of Interest to determine whether your proposed approach would be in scope ahead of submitting a full proposal.

Q. Is the “road side test system” (Challenge 1) meant to be a replacement or addition of/to the current tests?

A. If you look at the aspiration, it is a roadside evidential test. It may be that we go straight to a “machine” – just used as a term, I don’t want to limit any ideas.  The machine for challenge 1, could give you the evidential test results, meaning you do not have to do a screening test first. When we talked about some potential options it may be that that for challenge 2 you have a screening option and then you bring an evidential test to the machine to the roadside where you are.

It may be, that you have got something that is of such a good standard that there is no longer the need to do a screening test.

Now, it may be that that we still need to keep current methods in place due to operational considerations.

If we look at what the ultimate would be, a machine that is small, that’s portable and that can give an evidential test result at the roadside, nothing further is needed.

It may be that it is not practical, so hence the second challenge,  we would still have roadside tests, but the evidential test would be undertaken in a Police station potentially and not a laboratory.

The government would need to give consideration to actually look at what the current laws are, what future laws could be to support evidential testing at the roadside, and that would all be matters for the future. The public would need to be consulted on those matters and the government would need to give consideration for that also.

You will have a whole set of processes which includes a triangulation of interest, which is the rights and interests of the suspect, the victim and society as a whole. When you bring in any legislation or a process that requires public consultation, parliamentary debate and legislation from there.

We want to see what has potential to be developed and therefore after that we can give the necessary consideration before updating any policies, laws, procedural practices and operational aspects to it.

Q. Are you willing to change the law now or very quickly to allow for an option to use saliva/OF as the evidential sample?

A. The government continually reviews laws and will act accordingly as needed. To change law, you need a public consultation then parliamentary debate and parliamentary time. May need to consider policy options to put forward to ministers.

Q. Can we provide demonstrations of our technology to DASA or innovate prior to the submission of the proposal?

A. This is a DASA competition. We are not able to enter into a demonstration phase prior to submission. The process is as follows - Innovators will submit a proposal and if it is successful for funding then the project will commence once the applicant has been put on contract. Successful proposals will be assigned a Project Manager and/or Technical Partner and they will be able to liaise with you regarding demonstrations of your detection system to the competition team.

We recommend speaking to your Innovation Partner to determine whether or not your proposed solution would be in scope.

Q. What if the system provides only indicative, not evidential, results with 99% accuracy in seconds roadside? Would it still be considered?

A. We are interested in solutions that have the potential to be developed in the future and we recommend contacting your local Innovation Partner to discuss your proposed approach in the first instance.

Q. If this means fining the driver £1000 to cover the costs so what?

A. There is a legal issue with cost recovery so we are not able to recoup costs of the drug test.