The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, part of the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response at the Department of Health and Human Services, has for years relied on other-transaction authority to fund vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics. Those instruments sit outside the Federal Acquisition Regulation. Traditional cost-reimbursement and fixed-price contracts remain subject to the same regulation and to Inspector General review.

According to public budget justifications and BARDA’s own descriptions of its authorities, other-transaction agreements allow the government to negotiate terms with industry partners without the full suite of FAR clauses on cost accounting, competition, and audit access. Officials have said the flexibility is intended to attract firms that would otherwise decline federal work. The record shows the same authority was used for portions of Project BioShield and for selected awards during the COVID-19 response.

HHS Office of Inspector General reports, posted on the agency’s website, have examined BARDA and ASPR contract files that were awarded under the FAR. Those audits have identified instances of incomplete invoice support, delayed closeout, and limited documentation of technical monitoring. The Inspector General has not claimed equivalent access to every other-transaction file; the statutory design of OTAs does not automatically impose the same audit clauses.

Congressional Research Service summaries and Government Accountability Office testimony have noted that other-transaction awards can reduce the paper trail that inspectors later reconstruct. GAO has reported that agencies using OTAs sometimes lack standardized cost or pricing data. HHS officials have publicly described the trade-off as speed versus traditional oversight, without conceding that the instruments evade review.

The Inspector General’s work plans, published annually, list ongoing reviews of pandemic-era medical-countermeasure spending. Several of those reviews focus on contracts that followed FAR procedures. Separate OIG products have addressed ASPR’s broader acquisition workforce and the tracking of deliverables. The public docket does not show a parallel, comprehensive OIG audit of every BARDA other-transaction agreement.

Budget tables submitted to Congress list BARDA’s other-transaction obligations alongside conventional contracts. The figures fluctuate by fiscal year and by the volume of emergency appropriations. Public notices of award, when issued, often summarize the purpose of an OTA without attaching the full agreement. FAR awards, by contrast, typically generate more complete files that inspectors can sample.

Industry associations have told congressional committees that OTAs enable cost-sharing and intellectual-property arrangements that standard contracts make difficult. HHS has echoed that position in hearing testimony. Watchdog groups have argued that reduced transparency complicates later accountability. Neither side’s statements constitute a finding of illegality; they describe a structural difference in the instruments.

The Inspector General’s reports on specific BARDA contracts have recommended stronger invoice review, better documentation of technical representatives’ site visits, and more timely closeout. Management responses, also posted, have generally concurred and described corrective actions. Those recommendations apply to the contracts that were audited. They do not automatically extend to other-transaction files whose terms may limit government audit rights.

ASPR’s public descriptions of its authorities emphasize that other-transaction agreements remain subject to criminal statutes and to the False Claims Act. The Department of Justice has pursued civil cases involving pandemic-era medical products; those cases have not been limited to one contract type. The public record does not show a systematic comparison, by the Inspector General, of fraud rates between OTAs and FAR awards.

Congressional appropriators have, in report language, directed HHS to improve reporting on other-transaction use. The resulting justifications remain high-level. Inspectors continue to draw samples from the FAR universe because those files are, by design, more complete. The two tracks—flexible awards for countermeasures and traditional audits of regulated contracts—have coexisted for more than a decade.

BARDA’s portfolio includes both instruments. The choice of vehicle, according to agency statements, depends on the partner, the technology readiness level, and the need for speed. OIG’s published findings remain anchored in the contracts it can fully examine. The gap between the two systems is a matter of statute and of the paper each vehicle produces, not of a single classified program or an undisclosed directive.

Public dockets, inspector-general reports, and budget exhibits already display the pattern. Other-transaction awards continue. Traditional contract audits continue. The two streams of federal paper do not fully overlap.