Biomanufacturing
Get Smart on Biomanufacturing Biomanufacturing is the use of biological systems like engineered microbes, enzymes, and cell cultures instead of conventional chemical processes to…
Biomanufacturing Overview
"Biomanufacturing will help eliminate supply chain vulnerabilities."
- Emil Michael, Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering (DoD Chief Technology Officer)
Get Smart on Biomanufacturing
Biomanufacturing is the use of biological systems like engineered microbes, enzymes, and cell cultures instead of conventional chemical processes to produce materials: fuels, chemicals, construction materials, sensors, wearables, textiles, and specialized materials like spider-silk-based fibers. The Department's interest is strategic, not academic: many of these bio-based processes can replace supply chains that currently run through China or other adversarial or fragile sources, and can produce materials with properties (strength, self-healing, biodegradability) that conventional manufacturing can't easily match. Biomanufacturing is specifically about scaling biological processes into production at industrial volumes.
DoD released its first Biomanufacturing Strategy in March 2023, aimed at growing what was then a "nascent" domestic industry. It sets out three principles:
- Transition partnerships - line up defense customers for biomanufactured products early, so research targets real operational needs rather than the lab bench.
- Domestic ecosystem development - build a self-sustaining U.S. biomanufacturing base with allied partners, reducing reliance on fragile or adversarial supply chains.
- Ecosystem assessment - map the emerging biomanufacturing landscape and track metrics to steer future investment and de-risk it.
The strategy tied to a broader $1.2 billion commitment toward domestically producing mission-critical materials, including novel materials for hypersonics and submarines, and to shortening logistics timelines.
As of January 2026, Gary Vora is the Senior Official for Biomanufacturing.
Read More:
DoD Releases Biomanufacturing Strategy > U.S. Department of War > Release | U.S. Department of War
Pentagon seeks to jumpstart ‘nascent' biomanufacturing industry with new strategy - Breaking Defense
The Distributed Bioindustrial Manufacturing Program (DBIMP) is the Department's flagship vehicle for building a domestic bioindustrial base. Issued through the Defense Industrial Base Consortium Other Transaction Agreement, it made 34 awards totaling $60.2 million between July and November 2024 with successful projects eligible for up to $100 million in follow-on funding to build a U.S. manufacturing facility. Projects target five "defense material priorities" -- fabrication, firepower, fitness, food, and fuel, and include self-healing textiles, bio-based adhesives, aviation fuel additives, sustainable proteins, and rocket-propellant chemicals. The DBIMP awards cluster into three broad groups.
The largest, roughly half the total, targets structural materials and chemicals; companies like Lygos, ZymoChem, Danimer Scientific, and Solugen are developing domestic sources for coatings, adhesives, resins, and polymer precursors that currently depend on imported or foreign-controlled feedstocks.
A second cluster, around a fifth of the awards, focuses on fuels, propellants, and energetics, including Battelle (chemicals for smokeless propellants), Modular Genetics (reshoring an energetic-materials precursor), and Visolis (a platform chemical convertible into rocket propellants and sustainable aviation fuel).
A third cluster is food and alternative protein and is unusually large for a defense program: Perfect Day, Air Protein, The Better Meat Company, and EVERY Company are all developing protein sources for military rations and shelf-stable food, reflecting DBIMP's “fitness” and “food” priorities alongside “fabrication,” “firepower,” and “fuel.” A small remainder targets manufacturing infrastructure itself, such as East Tennessee State University's fermentation-facility retrofit. (Full award list - OSD)
Recent update: In January 2026, Visolis announced a $2.86 million award expansion on top of its original 2024 award, bringing its DBIMP total past $5 million, in order to scale a non-toxic solvent that replaces hazardous chemicals used to strip coatings from aircraft landing gear during maintenance.
DBIMP Status: As of December 2024, neither the House nor Senate FY25 defense appropriations bills included a dedicated Defense Production Act line item for DBIMP. The FY25 gap was compounded by the extended continuing resolutions covering FY25 and stretching into FY26. A report issued by the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB) recommends Congress appropriate at least $762 million over five years to keep the program moving into full-scale production.
The FY26 NDAA heavily features biodefense and devotes seven sections (242-248) specifically to biotechnology and biomanufacturing. Review the December 19, 2025 Council on Strategic Risks report Biodefense in the FY26 NDAA for much more in-depth analysis.
|
Section |
Provision |
|
242 |
Establishes a Biotechnology Management Office to coordinate across agencies, industry, and allies, and streamline regulation |
|
243 |
Authorizes a bioindustrial commercialization program for domestic manufacturing of critical bioproducts |
|
244 |
Enables development of field-deployable biotechnologies, prioritizing reduced foreign-supplier dependence |
|
245 |
Requires biological data collection/protection protocols to support AI applications |
|
246 |
Mandates a comprehensive biotechnology strategy addressing national security and industry ties |
|
247 |
Directs ethical guidelines (heritable characteristics, environmental impact) while maintaining Biological Weapons Convention compliance |
|
248 |
Establishes public guidance helping private firms show bio-based products meet military specifications |
Some outside assessments of the Department's biomanufacturing push have noted that the U.S. lacks enough pilot-scale infrastructure to carry promising biotech projects from the lab into commercial production, referring to this as the biomanufacturing "valley of death." The NCESB report cites "limited domestic scaling capacity" as a chief obstacle and recommends pre-commercial manufacturing facilities to de-risk scale-up for emerging firms. An AIChE Chemical Engineering Progress piece makes the same case for a dedicated "bio-industrial pilot plant network”.
Additional reading:
- RAND Corporation - "Biotechnology and Today's Warfighter" (commentary, Timothy Marler and Daniel Gerstein, Oct. 2022) argues biotech is inherently dual-use and flags gaps in U.S. preparedness and industrial oversight relative to China's biotech investment. (RAND)
- Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) - "Beyond Biological Defense: Biotech in U.S. National Security and Great Power Competition" (Aug. 2021) contrasts the U.S.'s historically civilian framing of biotech with China's military-first approach, and recommends steps to secure the domestic biotech industrial base. (IDA)
- MITRE - in its response to the White House's National Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Initiative RFI (Jan. 2023), MITRE called for a defined federal biomanufacturing strategy, sustained financing infrastructure, and designating biomanufacturing within DHS's Critical Manufacturing Sector, plus biotech workforce clusters linking industry, government, and academia. (MITRE)
The Department plans to complete a comprehensive biotechnology roadmap by September 2026, setting strategic investment priorities, funding requirements, and performance milestones. This is essentially a follow-up to the 2023 strategy, with the addition of the FY26 NDAA's new authorities. With biomanufacturing as one of only six critical technology areas, and a dedicated Senior Official and forthcoming Biotechnology Management Office in place, the next 12-18 months should show whether the DBIMP model and the new bioindustrial commercialization program can close the pilot-to-commercial-scale gap.
Biomanufacturing Videos
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