DOD selects Accenture to investigate ‘existential supply chain vulnerability’ threatening military medicine
The U.S. military’s medical supply chain is dangerously reliant on foreign entities, prompting the Pentagon to take “an immediate, urgent action” to pinpoint and assess domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing solutions and diversify options for the joint force.
According to procurement justification materials published Thursday, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, in partnership with the Defense Health Agency and Defense Logistics Agency, selected Accenture Federal Services for a firm-fixed-price, sole-source contract to provide supply chain mapping reports and due diligence evaluations, and enable domestic onshoring.
The estimated total value for the services is redacted in the document.
The Defense Department “currently faces an existential supply chain vulnerability, as the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) and Key Starting Materials (KSMs) for the military’s top 25 combat-essential medications are sourced almost entirely from foreign sources,” officials wrote.
Citing intelligence and supply chain indicators, officials warn that “immediate, unmapped vulnerabilities” exist in the raw materials and APIs required to manufacture life-saving trauma medications and antibiotics for service members.
Under the requirement, Accenture will deliver comprehensive, data-driven reports and assessments to illuminate the military’s medical supply chain — and identify sources and options to help secure it.
The company will be expected to review proposals from DOD and evaluate “strengths, weaknesses, financial risks, hidden capability gaps, and unsupported or unsubstantiated assumptions” to ultimately determine the viability of domestic onshoring initiatives.
The department is moving fast to keep DHA and DLA from remaining “strategically blind to impending supply disruptions, severely degrading” the combat support agency’s capacity to proactively stockpile or shift sourcing.
The justification document states that Accenture is uniquely positioned to immediately execute on this work.
The Offices of the Under Secretaries of Defense for Research and Engineering and Personnel and Readiness jointly conducted a market scan of vendors and determined that only Accenture had the combined technical and financial acumen to analyze the government’s proposals for risk.
“Nation-state cyber threats targeting military logistics require immediate remediation,” officials wrote.
