Attending to the Interests and Needs of the Bio Defense Community

Over the past decade, the United States government has allocated nearly $55 billion on preparing the nation against biological threats. The Obama administration has maintained that momentum with a total biodefense budget of $6.05 billion for FY2010, going primarily to the NIH and DOD. Additional civilian biodefense funds have been budgeted to the DHS, USDA, EPA, NSF and Department of State.

Due to the focused interests and needs of the funding agencies and the complex nature of solutions in that arena, biodefense submission processes are highly demanding. FreeMind’s team is frequently invited to work closely with companies and research organizations that are either dedicated to biodefense or those who have more widely ranging research, with individual applications that may be relevant to the biodefense community. We have supported the submission of successful grant and contract applications, covering projects of basic research up to product development. These applications also included late stage clinical research which later subsequently led to procurement deals with the agencies that originally funded the research activity.

FreeMind has been particularly successful in submitting and winning biodefense grants and contracts. Whereas the biodefense budget represents 0.5% of the HHS annual budget, FreeMind has submitted applications for at least ten times that proportion in recent years for diagnostics and therapeutics for Ebola, Marburg, Anthrax, Botulism, and a wide range of pathogens that have a widespread epidemic potential through either accidental or intentional contamination. Our clients were awarded over $270 million for such projects (2005-2009).