The Department of Defense has chosen seven more awardees for the Distributed Bioindustrial Manufacturing Program, or DBIMP, bringing the total to 13 awards with a combined value of $23 million.
The DOD said Tuesday the third batch of DBIMP awards was revealed during the National Defense Industrial Association’s Emerging Technologies Conference held on Aug. 7 in Washington, D.C.
The total number of awardees for the program is now 13 with the recent addition of the following bioindustrial companies:
- Battelle in Columbus, Ohio
- Modular Genetics in Cambridge, Massachusetts
- Genomatica in San Diego
- Industrial Microbes in Alameda, California
- ZymoChem in San Leandro, California
- The Better Meat Co. in West Sacramento, California
- Biosphere, in Oakland, California
The DBIMP awards are part of Executive Order 14081, or “Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe and Secure American Bioeconomy,” which aims to enhance the nation’s bioeconomic strengths and defense capabilities.
Selected companies will receive funding to create business and technical plans for building domestic bioindustrial manufacturing facilities. These projects are part of the Defense Industrial Base Consortium Other Transaction Agreement, a contract vehicle managed by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy.
Chosen projects will receive follow-on awards worth up to $100 million, which will be used to construct their proposed facilities.
Four-time Wash100 Award winner Heidi Shyu, the under secretary of defense for research and engineering, said, “Expanding the Department of Defense’s biotechnology capabilities is key to maintaining the United States’ supply chain and military superiority.”
Carla Zeppieri, deputy assistant secretary of defense for industrial base resilience, also highlighted the need for more resilient supply chains to address emerging threats and bolster the nation’s security needs. She noted that the DIBC OTA “plays a pivotal role in DOD’s efforts to develop mission-critical materials domestically.”
Debut received the first award for the DBIMP in July 2024. The rest of the awards should be announced within the coming month.