Tracking President Biden’s scientific manufacturing and supply chain investment
Where did the money go? The Biden Administration addresses science supply chain discontinuities.
The last two-and-a-half years have impacted supply chains across all industries, but the scientific industry has especially hurt. With an overwhelming demand for basic science supplies - masks, gloves, and pipette tips, to name a few, manufacturers and distributors have struggled to keep up. Scientists have suffered because of the unavailability of basic lab supplies. Therefore, advances in medicine and science have been compromised. To address supply chain discontinuities, the Biden Administration invested billions of dollars to help fix this problem.
On October 22, 2021, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Defense (DOD), announced a series of contracts totaling over $560 million in order to bolster domestic production capabilities and increase the availability of supplies needed for COVID-19 diagnostic testing. However, many of these supplies are essential to all laboratory research functions in academia and the private biotech world, and therefore all of science will benefit.
HappiLabs is right in the middle of this as our Virtual Lab Managers are responsible for procuring scientific supplies for labs in the United States. Due to issues with a lack of transparency in this industry, HappiLabs wants to raise awareness of where this government money is going and keep manufacturers accountable for its spending.
The $560 million was allocated via contracts from the DOD to 13 manufacturers. Nalge Nunc International Corporation, a Thermo Fisher Scientific subsidiary, received the largest contract, worth $192.5 million, even though Thermo (stock ticker TMO) made $7.73 BILLION in net income in 2021. The contracts were awarded between late August and October 2021, with production goals set for completion by the end of February 2022 through October 2025. We have included a table of the dollar amounts received by each manufacturer and a timeline of requirements, per the DOD contract releases.
Company / Manufacturer and Award ($)
Nalge Nunc International Corporation (TMO)
$192.5 million
OraSure Technologies Inc.
$109 million
Cepheid
$63.8 million
Labcon North America
$59.3 million
Mettler-Toledo Rainin
$35.8 million
Eurofins Genomics LLC
$30 million
Aptar CSP Technologies
$19.27 million
Porex Corporation
$16.2 million
SteriPack
$14.7 million
Princeton BioMeditech Corp
$9.9 million
US Cotton
$6.5 million
QIAGEN Beverly, Inc / QIAGEN Sciences LLC
$4 million
Clip Health (Luminostics)
$2 million
Total: $562.97 million
Timeline of Actions as reported on the contracts. Who will keep these companies accountable?
Feb 24, 2021 - Biden signs E.O. 14017, “America’s Supply Chains”
June 8, 2021 - E.O. 14017 100 Days’ Report is published
August 23, 2021 - DOD awards contract to QIAGEN Beverly, Inc.
August 24, 2021 - DOD awards contract to SteriPack
August 27, 2021 - DOD awards contract to US Cotton
August 31, 2021 - DOD awards contracts to
Nalge Nunc International Corporation
Luminostics
September 10, 2021 - DOD awards contract to Mettler-Toledo Rainin
September 20, 2021 - DOD awards contract to Princeton BioMeditech Corp.
September 30, 2021 - DOD awards contract to QIAGEN Sciences LLC
October 1, 2021 - DOD awards contracts to
OraSure Technologies Inc.
Cepheid
October 7, 2021 - DOD awards contract to Eurofins Genomics LLC
October 12, 2021 - DOD awards contracts to
CSP Technologies Inc
Porex Corporation
October 20, 2021 - DOD awards contract to Labcon North America
Oct 22, 2021 - HHS press release announcing the joint contracts with DOD
February 1, 2022
Steripack is expected to be at full production capacity, 22 million vials/month, of ExpressCollect sample collection vial
February 28, 2022
Princeton BioMeditech is expected to have completed industrial base expansion
QIAGEN Beverly Inc is expected to have increased monthly production of reagent kits and enzymes
Aptar CSP Technologies is expected to have procured equipment to scale up production of Activ-Film COVIS-19 test strips
March 1, 2022
Clip Health (Luminostics) is expected to have completed industrial base expansion to increase COVID-19 test kit production capacity to 3.3 million kits/month
March 31, 2022
QIAGEN Sciences LLC is expected to have expanded production capacity for COVID-19 tests
May 1, 2022
US Cotton is expected to increase production capacity from 92 million tips/month to approximately 371 million tips/month
September 30, 2022
Cepheid is expected to have completed work on a facility to expand domestic production capacity of a plastic overmold for XpertXpress rapid test kits
October 10, 2022
Porex Corporation is expected to have increased production capacity of pipette tip filters
January 1, 2023
Mettler-Toledo Rainin is expected to have increased production capacity of pipette tips by 70 million/month
September 1, 2023
Mettler-Toledo Rainin is expected to have installed a pipette tip sterilization facility
September 30, 2023
Eurofins Genomics is expected to have completed construction of a new facility to expand production capacity of GMP grade oligos used to test clinical specimens for SARS-CoV-2 presence
March 1, 2024
OraSure Technologies Inc. is expected to have completed retrofitting a production facility and build an additional facility with machinery to expand production capacity by 100 million tests annually
August 31, 2024
Nalge Nunc International Corporation is expected to have completed construction of an energy-efficient facility that will allow for the increase of monthly pipette tip production capacity to 160 million (production is expected to start Q3 2023)
October 12, 2025
Labcon is expected to have increased domestic production capacity of pipette tips 100 million/month to 236 million/month and tubes to 58 million/month by expanding a facility and production equipment
References
Federal Register for E.O. 14017
Whire House Briefing for E.O. 14017 100 Days’ Report
U.S. Department of Defense for contracts information
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for joint press release
