Medical, Biomedical & Biodefense: Support to the Warfighter Symposium

Description

The military and other defense-related agencies buy a lot of medical products and services in North Carolina. We have the fourth-largest number of active-duty warfighters among the states (91,000), because of installations such as Fort Liberty in Fayetteville and Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, so this accounts for some of the demand. But we also have major life sciences R&D and manufacturing, and universities such as Duke and UNC that get a lot of federal health research support.
The symposium is a two-day affair. It starts on Tuesday afternoon, June 11, at the NC Biotechnology Center in Research Triangle Park, with a preparatory overview of the conference. The next day, the symposium moves to the Friday Center in Chapel Hill for the whole day, and this is when the folks from the military services, Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs folks show up to talk about their needs, their budgets and how to do business with them.
Our military is preparing for war in the Western Pacific. The folks coming to MBB in two weeks have to ensure medical care in the kind of war our military hasn’t fought since Korea.
The organizer of the symposium is the North Carolina Military Business Center, a state agency whose mission is to help N.C. companies do business with the military, primarily, but other federal agencies, too.  NCMBC recently held another big conference, FEDTEX, for  the textile, apparel and tactical gear sectors.  NCMBC’s role has a strategic dimension, helping companies get into the defense industrial base, important in sustaining a big war.