BioFire Diagnostics, Inc., has signed a competitive prototyping contract with the Department of the Army for Increment 1 of the Next Generation Diagnostics System (NGDS) Program. NGDS is being developed by the Chemical Biological Medical Systems Biosurveillance (CBMS-BSV) Joint Product Management Office of the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense (JPEO-CBD) to provide an FDA-cleared diagnostic system for the analysis of clinical and environmental biological warfare (BW) agent samples. The system will provide military healthcare personnel with timely and accurate information to guide individual patient treatment and provide battlefield commanders with BW threat information for situational awareness to support Force Protection.
Kirk Ririe, BioFire Diagnostics CEO, points to the company’s “history of successful developmental efforts with the United States Department of Defense, most notably with the JBAIDS program,” and says the company is pleased to have the opportunity to demonstrate the capabilities of the FilmArray System. The System, he notes, “is capable of supporting the Department of Defense’s efforts to protect the Warfighter from environmental BW agent threats as well as clinical threats, especially since the FilmArray Instrument and Respiratory Panel have previously received FDA clearance.”
For Increment 1, BioFire will develop a FilmArray panel that will be optimized to detect BW agents in blood or environmental samples. The FilmArray System will be evaluated during the Competitive Prototyping Phase and, if selected, BioFire will receive a final contract to be awarded later in the year for further system development and obtaining FDA clearance for the BW agent panel. Learn more about FilmArray.
