The Department of Defense today announced 12 additional awards to bioindustrial firms via the Distributed Bioindustrial Manufacturing Program (DBIMP). This announcement brings the DBIMP to 25 awards to date totaling $42 million.
The awardees include Air Protein in San Leandro, California; Algenesis Corporation in San Diego; Bluestem Biosciences in Omaha, Nebraska; C16 Biosciences in New York City; Cellibre in San Diego; Danimer Scientific in Bainbridge, Georgia; Erg Bio in Dublin, California; Eastern Tennessee State University Research Corporation in Johnson City, Tennessee; FERMWORX in Columbus, Georgia; Mussel Polymers in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; Onego in San Diego; and Savor Foods in San Jose, California.
The awards are some of more than 30 expected to be conferred as part of the White House's Executive Order 14081, "Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe, and Secure American Bioeconomy," aimed at bolstering America's bioeconomic strengths while helping the Department achieve advanced defense capabilities.
"The bioindustrial manufacturing industry embodies the American values of innovation and entrepreneurship that are essential to a flourishing domestic industrial base," said Dr. Aprille Ericsson, the assistant secretary of defense for science and technology, within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. "These awards not only support commercial viability of bioproduction and biobased materials, but also empower this industry to contribute to national security as well as our economic prosperity."
Through these agreements, companies will receive funding to produce business and technical plans that detail construction of domestic bioindustrial manufacturing production facilities under the Defense Industrial Base Consortium (DIBC) Other Transaction Agreement (OTA), a contract vehicle awarded and overseen by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy. Successful projects that were selected under the competitive announcement can receive follow-on awards that would provide access to up to $100 million to build a U.S.-based bioindustrial manufacturing facility.
"Each DBIMP award demonstrates how DoD is committed to harnessing the innovation and advanced capabilities coming from industry," said Dr. Laura Taylor-Kale, assistant secretary of defense for industrial base policy within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment. "Expanding domestic biomanufacturing capacity brings stability to supply chains and furthers our efforts to build a modernized defense industrial ecosystem."
