Program Summary
The Nucleic acids On-demand Worldwide (NOW) program aims to develop a mobile medical countermeasure (MCM) manufacturing platform for use in stabilization and humanitarian operations to rapidly produce, formulate, and package hundreds of doses of nucleic acid therapeutics (DNA and/or RNA). These on-demand MCMs can also better prepare our deployed, field-forward forces against bio-threat attacks and emerging infectious disease. Fielding such a nucleic acid manufacturing platform will enable deployment of pure, sequence accurate MCMs in days, rather than months to years. Further, the mobile nature of the NOW platform will provide immediate threat response anywhere the military operates, mitigate surprise from disease threats, and ensure a resilient, readily accessible nucleic acid MCM manufacturing pipeline.