ARMY AL&T
additional medical treatment. ROCS minimizes casualties between the point of exposure and definitive medical care, limiting disruption to the mission.
But just before the JPM CBRN Medical team developing ROCS reached its acquisition finish line, it was already being handed its next challenge. After breaking medical acquisition barriers in its first test of speed, the operational joint force upped the ante. In January 2022, amid escalating tensions on the continent, U.S. Special Operations Command Europe (SOCEUR) sent an urgent request for additional protection against chemical agent threats. To fulfill SOCEUR’s critical requirement, two courses of action had to be worked simultaneously. First, ensuring ROCS, which was not yet FDA approved, could be used, and second, work- ing in close coordination with the deputy assistant secretary of defense for chemical and biological defense, the U.S. Army Medi- cal Logistics Command, and the vendor, determining a rapid path for procurement and delivery of the product to EUCOM.
Less than two months after SOCEUR’s request, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs approved ROCS’ use under the Expanded Access Protocol (EAP), which allows for use of treatments when there are no satisfactory alter- natives available granted by the FDA. Just nine days after the EAP was secured, JPEO-CBRND and the JPM CBRN Medical team delivered thousands of ROCS doses to the EUCOM area of responsibility. It was late March 2022 and, with the SOCEUR request fulfilled, the team took a collective deep breath and waited for the next round of ROCS doses to roll off the production line for initial fielding. At least that was the plan until a similar, but even larger, request arrived from the EUCOM surgeon general team less than a month after the SOCEUR delivery. In April 2022, EUCOM requested additional ROCS doses—a significant uptick from the amount that had sent the team scrambling into action back in January. But the lessons they learned and partner- ships they built from January to April came in handy.
In June, the JPM CBRN Medical team received approval from the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology for the procurement of additional ROCS doses to support the EUCOM request. Te team worked closely with U.S. Army Medical Materiel Center ‒ Europe, the lead DOD medical logistics agency for Europe, to deliver the first tranche of doses in August 2022, less than two months after receiving approval to purchase the total number of needed doses. Ten the remaining ROCS were delivered as quickly as they could be manufactured and shipped—some of the doses were delivered in late October and the remainder in early December 2022.
RESCUE TREATMENT
The naloxone autoinjector is a rescue treatment that will counteract the adverse effects from exposure to opioids and allows impacted service members to remain ambulatory to move to higher levels of care. (Photo courtesy of Kaléo Inc.)
RIGHT PEOPLE, RIGHT PROCESS On Dec. 9, 2022, JPM CBRN Medical marked the end of a 10-month marathon that saw them deliver tens of thousands of ROCS doses. Tis rapid execution of a medical countermeasure is nearly unheard of. Executing against such a short timeline took herculean effort and teamwork.
Lt. Col. Owen Roberts II, joint product manager for chemical defense pharmaceuticals at JPM CBRN Medical, attributed this tremendous accomplishment to the hard work of the assistant product managers on the team, who worked together to navi- gate and coordinate the fast-paced development timeline. He also credited Col. Ryan Eckmeier, then the joint project manager for JPM CBRN Medical, who leveraged an entire career’s worth of knowledge about the medical defense community and acquisi- tion to “find a way to yes.”
“A process or a system is nothing without the people doing the work behind it. We had the right people, and they were our
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