On December 6, 2021, the Department of Defense (DOD), on behalf of and in coordination with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), awarded a $18.39 million contract to Foamtec International, LLC (Foamtec) to increase onshore domestic manufacturing of foam-tipped swabs used for critical COVID-19 efforts.
Foamtec’s foam-tipped swabs are used to collect nasal and nasopharyngeal specimens for COVID-19 diagnostics. This industrial base expansion effort will allow Foamtec to increase their production onshore domestic capacity of 40 million foam-tipped swabs per month in Woodway, Texas by June 2022. This effort is to support domestic COVID-19 testing by increasing access to high quality foam-tipped swabs for screening and testing.
The DOD’s Defense Assisted Acquisition (DA2) Cell led this effort in coordination with the Department of the Air Force’s Acquisition COVID-19 Task Force (DAF ACT). This effort was funded through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to enable and support domestic industrial base expansion for critical medical resources.