The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) https://www.nist.gov, has awarded $153 million to the National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIIMBL) https://niimbl.force.com. NIIMBL is a public-private partnership ready to accelerate innovation in the biopharmaceutical industry.
The U.S. biopharmaceutical industry produces vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, gene therapies, and other medical products derived from biological sources. The first award for $70 million over five years has been matched by $1.80 in funding from NIIMBL member organizations.
NIIMBL works on challenges that are too big for any single organization to address. The Institute brings together more than 180 members, including biopharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, raw materials suppliers, equipment and product manufacturers, academic research institutions, state governments, and non-profit organizations focused on global health initiatives and workforce development.
The funding will enable NIIMBL to continue to drive innovation in the domestic biopharmaceutical manufacturing by developing flexible, agile, and cost-effective manufacturing processes that can be scaled up quickly and are less reliant on foreign supply chains. NIST will also provide $83 million in funding from the American Rescue Plan over three years to support R&D to prevent prepare for and respond to coronavirus outbreaks.
The new funding will enable NIIMBL to transform the emergency response into a sustainable ongoing effort to address the continuing coronavirus threat. NIIMBL will continue to develop efficient robust processes for manufacturing vaccines and therapeutics for COVID-19 and other coronavirus strains that could emerge in the future.