On January 11, 2016 it was announced that “the U.S. Army Contracting Command, Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey, on behalf of the Joint Project Manager for Medical Countermeasure Systems (JPM-MCS) through the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense (JPEO-CBD), announced its intent to enter into a Section 815 Other Transaction (OT) Agreement with the National Chemical and Biological Defense Consortium (NCBDC) for a period of twenty (20) years. ” [1]

NCBDC “encompasses the expertise, knowledge, technologies, and innovation to meet the program objectives and goals of the coordinated research and development program designed to support the Department of Defense’s medical, pharmaceutical, and diagnostic requirements as related to enhancing the mission effectiveness of military personnel.” It includes pharma industry, academic institutions, and not-for-profit partners, “forad vanced development efforts to support the Department of Defense’s (DoD) medical, pharmaceutical and diagnostic requirements as related to enhancing the mission effectiveness of military personnel”. [1, 4]

The NCBDC is an open consortium with a low barrier for membership. Any interested company, academic institution, or contractor can become a member and join the consortium to widen knowledge and technical expertise to continue to advance in technologies and meet Government needs.

  • On April 8, 2016, the OTA was finalized and the Government executed OTA W15QKN-16-9-1 to conduct collaborative, prototype research projects with NCBDC members with a cumulative value up to $10B over the next 20 years – called Requests for Prototype Proposals (RPPs)
  • The NCBDC changed its name to Medical CBRN Defense Consortium (MCDC).  It  is for the “distinct purpose of collaborating to provide quick and efficient delivery of (chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear) CBRN defense medical capabilities for the Joint Force under the DoD Chemical and Biological Defense Program (CBDP)”  The first RPP solicitation was released on June 22, 2016
  • In June 2017 MCDC attended the BIO industries’ (a lobby group) BIO conference, and in 2018 [5]

On July 21, 2020 following a RPP, the MCDC awarded a contract to Pfizer-BioNTech to accelerate their COVID-19 vaccine. [2, 3]