Over the last decade, our nation has responded to deliberate biological attacks – the mailing of anthrax-laden letters – and severe naturally occurring disease outbreaks including SARS and the 2009-H1N1 influenza pandemic. On October 4, 2011, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) issued the BARDA Strategic Plan 2011-2016, which articulates the guiding principles, goals, and strategies it will implement to enhance the capability of the U.S. government to develop medical countermeasures (MCMs) to these and other natural and intentional threats to public health.
BARDA develops and procures needed MCMs, including vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and non-pharmaceutical countermeasures, against a broad array of public health threats, whether natural or intentional in origin. |
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The BARDA Strategic Plan 2011-2016 emphasizes five goals BARDA will use to accomplish its mission:
- Goal 1: An advanced development pipeline replete with medical countermeasures and platforms to address unmet public health needs, emphasizing innovation, flexibility, multi-purpose and broad spectrum application, and long-term sustainability.
- Goal 2: A capability base to provide enabling core services to medical countermeasure innovators.
- Goal 3: Agile, robust and sustainable U.S. manufacturing infrastructure capable of rapidly producing vaccines and other biologics against pandemic influenza and other emerging threats
- Goal 4: Responsive and nimble programs and capabilities to address novel and emerging threats
- Goal 5: A ready capability to develop, manufacture and facilitate distribution of medical countermeasures during public health emergencies
The BARDA Strategic Plan defines a set of core principles that will improve BARDA’s ability to manage resources efficiently, strengthen public-private partnerships, and promote the broad categories of countermeasures that BARDA is most interested in pursuing to protect health and save lives in a public health emergency.
The plan builds on the goals of the 2007 Draft BARDA Strategic Plan, which focused on aligning and coordinating BARDA goals and programs with key pandemic influenza and CBRN strategy documents; developing an HHS Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasure Enterprise CBRN implementation plan; and es¬tablishing programs that promote innovation in MCM development. The latest plan also is informed by the National Health Security Strategy, The Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasures Enterprise Review, and the many lessons learned from the 2009 H1N1 pandemic influenza response.