On July 29, 2020, the Department of Defense (DOD), in coordination with the Department of Health and Human Services, awarded an undefinitized contract action with a not-to-exceed ceiling of $51.15 million to Puritan Medical Products Company LLC, to expand industrial production capacity of flock tip testing swabs.
With the sudden global onset of COVID-19, severe capacity constraints were placed on this sole domestic manufacturer of the flock tip swabs, the preferred COVID-19 testing swab. This industrial base expansion effort will allow Puritan Medical to stand up a new flock tip production facility in Maine, increasing their production capacity to 50 million swabs per month by March 2021 to support domestic COVID-19 testing.
Funded by the CARES Act, this effort was led by DOD’s Joint Acquisition Task Force in coordination with HHS to enable and support domestic industrial base expansion for critical medical resources.