The U. S. Department of Defense has awarded a $20 million contract to Abbott Laboratories to improve traumatic brain injury testing for military personnel, according to a Pentagon report.
The report details that the $19.5 million agreement calls on Abbott Park, IL–based Abbott to assess and verify biomarkers that reveal mild TBI. This would lead to developing tests for brain injury on the Abbott i-Stat, a device already used by the military health system.
The agreement includes $3.9 million in research, development, test and evaluation funds for fiscal 2014. The Pentagon solicited and received bidding for the contract from Abbott alone. Work is estimated to finish August 12, 2016 with manufacturing by plants in Ottawa, Canada; Chicago, Illinois; and Princeton, NJ.
Traumatic brain injuries are serious business for the U.S. military--invisible wounds from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, where improvised explosive devices were widely used against American and allied forces.
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A year ago, DOD and Department of Veterans Affairs experts came together at the Military Health System Research Symposium to discuss veterans’ mental health and traumatic brain injury research efforts, including the National Research Action Plan. NRAP, developed under an executive order signed in 2012 by President Barack Obama, aims to help mental health services for veterans, service members and military families. The order includes a directive to complete the DOD-CDC-Brain Trauma Foundation mild TBI/concussion classification project to clarify facts about mild TBI and find where improvements are necessary.
Released in August 2013, the plan requests that multiple agencies work together toward finding and fixing TBI testing and treatment. The order asks the DOD, Veterans Affairs (VA), Health and Human Services (HHS), and Education “to fund multi-disciplinary research programs devoted to scientific discovery to advance health in civilian and/or military populations.”
