Fort Belvoir, VA 9 September 2022 – On Friday, the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency held the 2022 Research and Development Industry Collider Day (ICD). The event brought together experts from government, industry, and academia to discuss ‘Renewing and Reshaping Our Growing Supply Chain Solutions’.
VADM Michelle Skubic, Director of DLA, kicked off the event in an address that spoke to the importance of private industry working closely with the DLA to address the critical path of exploring new and innovative solutions to optimize and safeguard U.S. supply chains in alignment with national defense initiatives.
Oceanit was commended in opening remarks from Dr. George Duchak, DLA’s Chief Information and Innovation Officer, who specifically identified Oceanit’s ASSURE-100 Rapid COVID-19 Test as an example of incredibly successful collaboration between government and industry.
In 2021, the Defense Logistics Agency Small Business Innovation Research (DLA SBIR) Program funded a series of projects in response to national shortages on pandemic items such as test kits. In partnership with DLA, Oceanit developed a break-through, point-of-care rapid test kit with market-leading sensitivity and 100% specificity. The ASSURE-100 Rapid COVID-10 Test received FDA emergency use authorization in February 2022.
Oceanit’s simple, 3-component test kit – swab, vial, and cassette – requires no additional equipment and has the same high performance for all COVID-19 variants.
“The rigorous regulatory hurdles put in place to safeguard public health, combined with the stringent nature of the authorization process, meant that Oceanit needed to be airtight when submitting and defending their EUA application” said Dr. Imes Chiu, the project’s Technical Point of Contact.
“If any one thing doesn’t work, Oceanit starts over. They also responded to FDA questions within 48 hours,” stated Chiu. Dr. Chiu serves as the Science and Technology Forward from the United States Army Corps of Engineers—Engineer Research Development Center co-located at DLA Research & Development, Fort Belvoir.
In the days following the EUA issuance, Oceanit received large volume orders from various institutions, such as United States Government agencies, state and local government agencies, healthcare companies, schools, labor unions, independent pharmacies, first responders, not-for-profit organizations, and many other establishments from across various industries.
At DLA Industry Collider Day, the success with Oceanit and ASSURE-100 was held up as a model of what can be accomplished when government and small businesses collaborate to bring new innovations from mind to market.
ABOUT DLA
The Defense Logistics Agency is the United States’ combat logistics support agency, managing the end-to-end global defense supply chain – from raw materials to end user disposition – for the five U.S. military services, 11 combatant commands, other federal, state and local agencies, and partner and allied nations. ‘DLA Research and Development’ is dedicated to improving warfighter support by addressing military needs, redefining internal business processes for DLA’s global supply chain, and addressing industrial base manufacturing issues. DLA R&D is working on over 200 projects grown from small business innovation.
ABOUT OCEANIT
Founded in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1985, Oceanit is a privately held ‘Mind to Market’ company, developing award-winning disruptive innovation that endeavors to solve important problems across sectors like aerospace, energy, environment & climate, ocean sciences, health, and materials. Oceanit employs the unique discipline of ‘Intellectual Anarchy’ to transform fundamental science developed in the lab into impactful technologies for the market. Oceanit creates cutting-edge solutions, services, and products.
