On May 5, 2022, the Department of Defense (DoD), on behalf of and in coordination with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), awarded a $79.9 million contract to Premix, Inc. to establish production of a plastic compound primarily used for pipette tips, which are essential to COVID-19 and other diagnostic testing efforts. Premix, Inc. is a U.S. company and a subsidiary of Premix Oy, a Finnish company.
This industrial base expansion effort will allow Premix to onshore manufacturing capability to produce plastic resin suitable for pipette tips and tubes necessary to meet increased supply chain demands and other critical diagnostic activities. Increased production capacity will enable more than 200 million COVID-19 PCR tests monthly by September 2025 in Gaston County, North Carolina.
This award concludes industrial base expansion efforts made through a Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) Area of Interest (AoI) opened in February 2021. The AoI solicited innovative solutions to rapidly mature and scale specific manufacturing capabilities within the diagnostic testing supply chain, such as raw materials, components, and equipment, used in the production of analyzers, reagents, test kits and other diagnostic materials for COVID-19 and other diagnostic testing.
The DoD’s Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense (JPEO-CBRND) led this effort in partnership with DoD’s Defense Assisted Acquisition Cell (DA2), and the Department of the Air Force’s Acquisition COVID-19 Task Force (DAF ACT). This effort was funded through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to enable and support domestic industrial base expansion for critical medical resources.