The Department of Defense is inviting potential vendors to submit white papers for a bioindustrial manufacturing funding opportunity.
The Distributed Bioindustrial Manufacturing Investment Program will leverage the Defense Industrial Base Consortium Other Transaction Agreement vehicle in an aim to boost domestic supply chains using biotechnology, DOD announced Wednesday.
The agency plans to select 30 proposals for establishing a bioindustrial production facility by May. Each awardee will receive $2 million to execute their technical and business plan.
“President Biden called on the Department of Defense to assess how the agency can use biotechnology to make our supply chains more resilient, create jobs at home, and strengthen America’s bioeconomy,” remarked Heidi Shyu, under secretary of defense for research and engineering. “These major investments will help answer his charge to harness the full potential and power of biotechnology to advance national and economic security,” the four-time Wash100 inductee added.
“The DIBC OTA helps enable more rapid execution of Defense Production Act funding and can also allow for other federal agencies with similar investments to separately or jointly invest in projects awarded by DoD,” said William LaPlante, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment and three-time winner of the Wash100 Award.