Stand Ready. Move Fast. Save Lives.

During my first year serving in the HHS Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, one thing is abundantly clear: uncertainty is not the exception – it's the operating environment. ASPR provided resources and support to communities during a steady stream of challenges: infectious disease outbreaks, natural disasters, fragile medical supply chains, and more.

ASPR has delivered landmark achievements in 2025, and these accomplishments reflect ASPR’s commitment to safeguarding the health of the American people while strengthening national security.

Advancing Medical Countermeasures and Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Resilience

We cannot face tomorrow’s health security challenges with yesterday’s medicines and pharmaceutical supply chains. Our direction from the Trump Administration is clear: innovate so we are better equipped to Make America Healthy again and onshore and strengthen the pharmaceutical manufacturing and production capabilities that our nation relies on.

In support of the Make America Healthy Again initiative, ASPR’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority achieved 10 new FDA approvals, bringing its cumulative total to 107 medical countermeasure approvals. These life-saving innovations span diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines and strengthen preparedness for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats, pandemic influenza, and emerging infectious diseases.

In alignment with Executive Order 14336 – Ensuring American Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Resilience, ASPR’s Center for Industrial Base Management and Supply Chain (IBMSC) has made major strides to establish pharmaceutical independence for the United States. In 2025, IBMSC began work to support the storage of critical and at-risk drugs identified as vital to national health and security.

To reduce dependence on foreign pharmaceutical supply chains, IBMSC invested over $1 billion in domestic manufacturing capacity with a special emphasis on utilizing new technologies such as on demand, on site production technology using artificial intelligence, machine learning, 3-D printing, and informatics.

Enhancing National Emergency Preparedness

Through teamwork, precision, and relentless preparation, ASPR ensured the nation was better prepared to face complex threats to our nation’s health.

ASPR led the Tranquil Passport Full-Scale Exercise, one of the most extensive infectious disease patient movement exercises ever conducted. More than 1,000 personnel from 70+ federal, state, local, international, and non-governmental organizations participated in this exercise to test and validate the nation’s ability to safely and securely transport patients with high-consequence infectious diseases to regional treatment centers, and to demonstrate capabilities of ASPR’s new Portable Biocontainment Unit (PBCU).

ASPR brought together 92% of the nation's directors of public health emergency preparedness (DPHPs) for a groundbreaking event between DPHPs and ASPR regional teams from across the country. The workshop and Open House, featuring 17 ASPR programs, gave participants a clear understanding of ASPR’s mission, resources, and capabilities. The event strengthened collaboration, promoted transparency, and enhanced collective preparedness, laying the foundation for future action-oriented workshops to advance jurisdictional resilience nationwide.

ASPR also manages the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) to ensure lifesaving medicines and supplies are ready and quickly deliverable to affected communities. In 2025, the SNS began a nationwide effort to place medical countermeasures closer to the communities that depend on them by supporting state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) partners in building and maintaining their own stockpiles. To strengthen readiness, the SNS held listening sessions with 613 SLTT partners and validated 22 SLTT warehouse facilities to ensure they can receive, stage, and store medical countermeasures during emergencies.

In addition, the SNS trained responders from all 10 regions, including 22 states, two territories and one tribal entity, at the SNS Operations Course held at FEMA’s Center for Domestic Preparedness. This past year, the SNS also responded to multiple real-world incidents, deploying mpox treatments, personal protective equipment and antiviral drugs for H5N1, a Federal Medical Station for flooding in Washington State, Marburg, and Ebola Zaire vaccine for laboratory workers, clinicians, emergency responders and other at-risk personnel.

ASPR’s Technical Resources, Assistance Center, and Information Exchange (ASPR TRACIE) continued to be the backbone of healthcare preparedness, providing more than 13,000 technical assistance responses and supporting over 70 active incidents in 2025. ASPR also trained over 740,000 individuals on how to support electricity-dependent and healthcare-dependent at-risk populations during emergencies.

Driving Effective Response and Recovery Operations

In 2025, ASPR’s mission demanded rapid action on multiple fronts: deploying expert teams of medical responders, supporting communities through disaster recovery, defending critical health systems from cyber threats, and confronting emerging diseases abroad before they impacted national public and medical health.

In 2025, ASPR deployed nearly 1,300 personnel, including medical personal from the National Disaster Medical System, to support emergent crises and high-profile national events. ASPR was activated for nine National Special Security Events (NSSEs) and five disaster incidents, ensuring expert support wherever and whenever it was needed.

Recovery and behavioral health teams were activated for nine missions, with two ongoing concurrently, providing essential mental health and community recovery services.

ASPR continued to advance national cybersecurity in health care—triaging over 1,500 cybersecurity incidents and monitoring more than 780 potential threat events to mitigate risks across the sector.

Notably, a cybersecurity breach occured in St. Croix that significantly disrupted the islands essential clinical systems demonstrated ASPR’s rapid-response capability to cyber threats impacting critical healthcare infrastructure. At the request of local and federal partners, ASPR's Disaster Telemedicine team devised a rapidly deployable solution to support ongoing hospital services and recovery efforts utilizing ASPR’s telemedicine resources. 

In 2025, ASPR supported global response operations, preventing several infectious disease threats from reaching U.S. shores. For example, ASPR:

• Rawanda - Marburg

• Delivered 100 treatment courses of an Ebola therapeutic, along with diagnostic tests and swabs, to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

• Donated nearly 240,000 doses of monkeypox vaccine to six African nations and deployed over 550 therapeutic drugs to treat symptomatic patients.

• Pledged up to 2,500 doses of an investigational Marburg vaccine and 25 doses of a Marburg therapeutic to Ethiopia in response to the ongoing outbreak.

Looking Ahead

ASPR advanced preparedness for, response to, and recovery from public health and medical disasters throughout 2025. From groundbreaking FDA approvals and supply chain investments to large-scale training initiatives and global countermeasure deployments, ASPR continues to build a resilient health security future for all Americans.

As we prepare to celebrate the 250th anniversary of this great country, whatever challenges we may face in 2026, ASPR will stand ready, move fast, and save lives.