US must ensure mission partner data security for collaborative warfare

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  November 9, 2018 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  UK - MOD sets out vision to diversify supply base

  The Ministry of Defence has today announced plans for modernising its estate and establishing a broader and more diverse supply base. The Defence Infrastructure Organisation's (DIO) new procurement plan outlines a programme of major projects and contacts for the next five financial years. This includes work to construct new buildings, such as housing and accommodation, the refurbishment of current facilities; as well as services such as catering, waste management and cleaning. The plan also sets out ambitions to establish a broader and more diverse supply base, including doing more business with small and medium size enterprises (SMEs). Currently, around 75% of spending on maintenance at defence sites goes directly or indirectly to SMEs, and further diversifying the supply base will help build resilience into projects and provide more opportunities for smaller companies to work on key defence projects. By listing all the major projects and contracts, the procurement plan will make it easier for existing and potential suppliers to plan ahead, by offering advice on bidding for this work and greater transparency on working with the MOD. These measures will help in particular small businesses, who don't always have the skills and prior experience of working with the MOD in such areas. Minister for Defence People and Veterans Tobias Ellwood said: The defence estate is where our brave armed forces live, work and train and so it's crucial we give them the best supplies and facilities possible. Working with industry is critical to delivering this, and our new Procurement Plan ensures the private sector has a head start in bidding for this crucial work. Opportunities outlined in the Procurement Plan include the £4billion Defence Estate Optimisation Programme, the Future Defence Infrastructure Services contracts - which will provide facilities management across the UK's military bases- and the £1.3bn Clyde Infrastructure Programme. The plan also details several prominent works that demonstrate DIO's key role in supporting defence throughout the UK. These include essential maintenance work worth £568 million to support nuclear infrastructure capability at HMNB Clyde, as well as a £58m investment in a modern submarine training facility at the base. Alongside this, there are plans for an £8m investment in Bovington Camp to support the AJAX armoured vehicles which will enter service in 2020. Jacqui Rock, DIO Commercial Director, said: As DIO we recognise that our current and future suppliers are key to our success. We have worked with industry to produce the Procurement Plan and we are committed to building a broader, more diverse supplier base. We believe in being as transparent as possible in our procurements and through this new approach we are encouraging new entrants, including small and medium sized enterprises, to consider the benefits and opportunities that working with DIO can deliver. The Procurement Plan will help achieve the goals set out in our first ever Commercial Strategy. This set out our vision for how we do business and how we will work effectively with our suppliers. The Procurement Plan also sets out how DIO can deliver social and economic benefits throughout its supply chain by working to contribute to the government's aim of recruiting 20,000 apprentices through construction procurement and promoting sustainability through its supply chain. By 2020, DIO has committed to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 30%, a 30% reduction in domestic business flights, a 50% reduction in paper usage and reducing waste going to the landfill to less than 10%. The full DIO Procurement Plan can be found here The DIO Commercial Strategy sets the direction for future DIO Procurement Plans. The full DIO Commercial Strategy can be found here https://www.gov.uk/government/news/mod-sets-out-vision-to-diversify-supply-base--2

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  November 30, 2018 | International,

  Reinventing Drug Discovery and Development for Military Needs

  Flying at 50,000 feet, diving deep in the ocean, or hiking for miles with gear through extreme climates, military service members face conditions that place unique burdens on their individual physiology. The potential exists to develop pharmacological interventions to help service members complete their toughest missions more safely and efficiently, and then recover more quickly and without adverse effects, but those interventions must work on complex physiological systems in the human body. They will not be realized under the prevailing system of drug discovery and development with its focus on engaging single molecular targets. DARPA created the Panacea program to pursue the means of rapidly discovering, designing, and validating new, multi-target drugs that work with the body's complexity to better support the physiological resilience and recovery of military service members. The premise of Panacea is that the physiological systems of the human body work in complex and highly integrated ways. Drugs exert effects on our bodies by physically interacting with and changing the functional state of biomolecules that govern the functions of cells and tissues. Most drugs target proteins, which are the principle cellular workhorses. Ideally, drugs would target multiple proteins simultaneously to exert precise, network-level effects. One major problem facing the drug development community is that the functional proteome — the complete collection of proteins and their roles in signaling networks — is largely dark to science. Despite being able to identify many of the proteins within a cell, researchers do not have a firm grasp on everything those proteins do and how they interact to affect physiology. Due to this sparsity of structural and functional knowledge, the state of the art in drug development — what Panacea seeks to transform — is to engage only a very small fraction of known protein targets to achieve an effect. In fact, today's approach to drug design singles out individual proteins in certain cells. That hyper-specificity is an attempt to minimize the risk of side effects and speed time to market, but it also yields a thin stream of drugs, many of which have similar mechanisms and relatively muted effectiveness compared to what might be achieved using a multi-target, systems-based approach. “The current roster of drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration only targets about 549 proteins, yet the body can produce more than six million different protein variants,” said Tristan McClure-Begley, the Panacea program manager. “The opportunity space for pharmacological intervention is vast and effectively untapped, but to access it we need new technology for understanding and targeting the human functional proteome.” Panacea will address the lack of functional knowledge about the proteome. DARPA's call to the research community is to consider complex physiological conditions relevant to military service members — for instance, metabolic stress during extreme endurance missions or pain and inflammation after injury; investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying those conditions; identify multiple, key molecular targets involved; and develop novel medicinal chemistry approaches to synthesize interventions that modulate those targets. DARPA believes that multi-target drugs will deliver safer and more efficacious solutions to military requirements for readiness and recovery over state-of-the-art interventions. “Many of the most successful drugs produced in the past were found rather than made, and we knew what they did long before we knew how they did it,” McClure-Begley said. “To deliver improved interventions, we need to get to a place where we can investigate all of the potential proteins at play for a given condition and then prioritize sets of protein targets and signaling networks to effectively modulate physiological systems, regardless of what prior knowledge exists about those targets.” The Panacea program aims to generate initial proof of concept for this new direction in drug discovery and development. Research will primarily involve animal models, human cell derived organoids, and high-throughput cell culture models. However, to support eventual transition to humans, DARPA will work with federal agencies to develop a regulatory pathway for future medical use. By the end of the five-year program, DARPA will require teams to submit novel drug candidates to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for review as an Investigational New Drug or for Compassionate Use. DARPA will hold a Proposers Day on December 14, 2018, in Arlington, Virginia, to provide more information about Panacea and answer questions from potential proposers. For details of the event, including registration requirements, visit https://go.usa.gov/xP6hD. A forthcoming Broad Agency Announcement will fully describe the program structure and objectives. https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2018-11-28

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  July 2, 2019 | International, Land

  Rheinmetall, BAE consummate armored-vehicles joint venture

  By: Andrew Chuter and Sebastian Sprenger LONDON and COLOGNE, Germany – Germany's Rheinmetall and Britain's BAE Systems on Monday launched their U.K.-based military vehicles joint venture, after British authorities approved the deal in mid-June, the companies announced. The new outfit is named RBSL, short for Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land, and it's based in Telford, West Midlands. Peter Hardisty, formerly of Rheinmetall UK, is the company's managing director. The joint venture sets out to “play a major role” in manufacturing the Boxer multirole fighting vehicle for the British Mechanised Infantry Vehicle program, according to a Rheinmetall statement. Official also have an eye on “other strategic combat vehicle programs” in addition to maintenance contracts for the British Army's bridging- and armored-vehicle fleets, according to the company. “This announcement is a clear vote of confidence in the UK's defence industry as a world-leader in designing, supplying and supporting military vehicles,” Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt was quoted as saying in the statement. “This exciting venture clearly demonstrates how Defence sits at the heart of the prosperity agenda. Its benefits will be felt in the West Midlands and across the UK defence supply chain, creating jobs, boosting exports and guaranteeing our technical skills base into the future.” Some might think it was anything but. That's because the news also means Britain has lost its only big-name, armored-vehicle company in a joint venture where BAE is the junior partner. As a result, the country no longer has a domestically controlled mainstream vehicle supplier — although some would argue BAE forfeited that role a while ago. The British company retains significant armored-vehicle design and build activities in the United States and Sweden. General Dynamics UK, Lockheed Martin UK and Rheinmetall now have significant investments in Britain's armored-vehicle sector, with British involvement primarily led by specialist designers and builders like Supacat and Jankel and a still-vibrant sector supply chain. It's a far cry from 2004 when BAE acquired key domestic manufacturer Alvis, trumping an acquisition bid from General Dynamics with a last-minute offer of £355 million (U.S. $451 million) that was largely seen as a strategic move. At the time, most of the British Army's armored vehicle fleet was designed and supplied by Alvis. But that's dramatically changed. General Dynamics has recently started supplying its Ajax family of tracked reconnaissance vehicles to the Army in what is the biggest deal in the sector in three decades. Final assembly and testing takes place at company facilities in South Wales. Lockheed Martin is leading the program to update the Warrior infantry fighting vehicle as well as supply turrets for the Ajax program from a factory in southern England. Rheinmetall is a partner in the Artec consortium selected without competition to supply Britain with the eight-wheel drive Boxer vehicle. The vehicle was nominated as the preferred option last year but a final production deal between RBSL and the Ministry of Defence has yet to be announced. Rheinmetall and BAE have also been vying to supply a major upgrade of the Challenger 2 main battle tank for the British Army. Mordaunt recently labeled the Challenger as “obsolete” due to the ministry's failure to keep pace with technological advances in the sector. In a speech to the Royal United Services Institute think tank last month, she said Britain had fallen behind it's allies and rivals due to underinvestment in the armored vehicle sector. A decision on the Challenger update program is expected shortly. However, recent signals from the MoD suggest the Army may have got its wish to fall into line with other NATO members and go for the German company's solution of a new turret and 120mm smoothbore gun to replace the rifled weapon currently fitted to the Challenger 2. BAE's weapons and ammunition activities in the U.K. are excluded from the deal, as is the CTAI joint venture with Nexter to build a new 40mm cannon. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2019/07/01/rheinmetall-bae-consummate-armored-vehicles-joint-venture/