On August 7, the U.S. Department of Defense announced it had awarded seven more Distributed Bioindustrial Manufacturing Program awards to seven more firms.
The awards brings the number of awards to date up to 13 for a total of $23 million. Awardees included Modular Genetics, Battelle and Genomatica, officials said. More than 30 are expected to be conferred in all, all part of the White House’s “Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe and Secure American Bioeconomy” executive order. The order aims to bolster the country’s bioeconomic strengths while advancing defense capabilities.
“Expanding the Department of Defense’s biotechnology capabilities is key to maintaining the United States’ supply-chain and military superiority,” Heidi Shyu, Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, said at the National Defense Industrial Association’s Emerging Technologies Conference in Washington, D.C.
As part of the award, companies will get funding to produce business and technical plans that detail the construction of domestic bioindustrial manufacturing production facilities under the Defense Industrial Base Consortium (DIBC) Other Transaction Agreement (OTA), overseen by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy. Projects will be eligible to receive up to $100 million to build a U.S.-based bioindustrial manufacturing facility.
“As we look to build resilient supply chains and address emerging threats,” Carla Zeppieri, deputy assistant secretary of defense for industrial base resilience, said. “The DIBC OTA plays a pivotal role in DoD’s efforts to develop mission-critical materials domestically and meet our national security needs.”
The awards included $1.85 million for Columbus, Ohio-based Battelle to create a plan for a facility to produce less expensive chemicals needed for smokeless propellants; and $1.51 million to San Diego-based Genomatica to create plans for a multiproduct biorefinery to domestically produce polymer precursors for the aviation and automobile markets.