The U.S. Department of Defense, in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, announced this past Friday that it had modified its contract with Mountain View, California-based iHealth Lab to procure an additional 104,166,665 over-the-counter COVID-19 test kits.

The initiative came as part of efforts to support President Joe Biden's pledge to deliver 500 million free at-home tests in response to the Omicron COVID-19 variant.  

"The procurement was funded through the American Rescue Plan Act to supply critical medical resources to the nation," said the Defense Department in a press release.  

iHealth Lab is a unit of Andon Health, a China-based medical device manufacturer.

The modification follows an announcement Jan. 13 that HHS and the Defense Department had awarded contracts to iHealth – along with Abbott Rapid Dx North America and Roche Diagnostics – to purchase a combined total of 380 million antigen over-the-counter COVID-19 tests.   

On Jan. 21, the agencies then announced that they had awarded a contract to Siemens Healthineers to procure 50 million over-the-counter tests.  

The procurement efforts were led by the Defense Department's Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense, in partnership with the department's Defense Assisted Acquisition Cell, Army Contracting Command and the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response.  

Meanwhile, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has continued to issue emergency use authorizations for rapid COVID-19 tests, most recently those from Roche and Siemens.

Healthcare IT News' requests for comment regarding the contract-awarding process were not returned by press time.

Kat Jercich is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Twitter: @kjercich
Email: kjercich@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.