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Sprint for Women's Health Initiative
ARPA-H Current Funding Programs
ARPANET-H: A nationwide health innovation network
Helpful tips and templates
Background
Sprint for Women’s Health Initiative
The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) Sprint for Women’s Health aims to address critical unmet challenges in women’s health across all demographics, geographies, and socioeconomic statuses, championing transformative innovations and tackling health conditions that uniquely or disproportionately affect women from every walk of life.
The ARPA-H Sprint for Women’s Health’s new request for solutions (RFS) funding opportunity will use two funding tracks to foster transformative research and development efforts: one for early-stage research, or “Spark” solutions, and the other for later-stage development, or “Launchpad” solutions.
Important FAQ Update on ARPA-H Sprint for Women's Health Solution Summary submission process
ARPA-H Takes on Rare Diseases 3/7/24
MATRIX, Short for ML/AI-Aided Therapeutic Repurposing in eXtended uses
MATRIX intends to build a machine learning platform to rapidly pinpoint and validate existing medications to treat diseases that have no therapies.
ARPA-H Current Funding Programs
Sprint for Women’s Health Initiative - See RDO information above for description of funding opportunities under this initiative.
Mission Office-specific Innovative Solutions Openings (ISOs)
This new set of funding opportunities replaces the previous Open BAA. The “open” ideas will now be directed toward ARPA-H mission office areas (described below).
To enhance our ability to support initiatives that align with our mission and Strategic Plan, ARPA-H is now accepting submissions to its Mission Office-specific ISOs. The four Mission Office-specific ISOs include:
BREATHE
Funding BAA: Building Resilient Environments for Air and Total HEalth (BREATHE)
- Hybrid Proposers' Day: May 2, 2024, 8:30 AM PT - 5:00 PM PT in Oakland, Calif.
- Proposers' Day registration closes April 30, 2024 at 9:00 AM PT
- Solution Summary Due Date and Time: June 7, 2024
- (by invitation only) Proposal Due Date and Time: August 12, 2024
PM - Jessica Green, Ph.D.
View Opportunity Details
LIGHT
Funding BAA: Lymphatic Imaging, Genomics, and pHenotyping Technologies (LIGHT)
- Hybrid Proposers' Day: May 14, 2024 in Philadelphia, PA
- Proposers' Day registration closes May 7, 2024 at 5:00 PM ET
- Solution Summary Due Date and Time: June 11, 2024 at 11:00 AM ET
- (by invitation only) Proposal Due Date and Time: TBD
PM - Kimberley Steele, M.D., Ph.D.
View Opportunity Details
PRINT
Funding BAA: Personalized Regenerative Immunocompetent Nanotechnology Tissue (PRINT)
- Proposers’ Day: May 7, 2024, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM CT virtually and in-person in New Orleans, LA
- Proposers' Day registration closes April 30, 2024 at 1 PM ET
- Solution Summary Due Date and Time: May 28, 2024, 9:00 AM ET
- (by invitation only) Proposal Due Date and Time: Jul 08, 2024 05:00 pm EDT
PM - Ryan Spitler, Ph.D.
View Opportunity Details
EMBODY
Funding BAA: Engineering of Immune Cells Inside the Body (EMBODY)
- Proposers’ Day: April 18, 2024
- Solution Summary Due Date and Time: May 2, 2024, 5:00 PM EDT
- (by invitation only) Proposal Due Date and Time: June 11, 2024 05:00 pm EDT
PM - Daria Fedyukina, Ph.D.
View Opportunity Details
ADAPT
Funding BAA: ADvanced Analysis for Precision cancer Therapy
- Proposal Due Date and Time: May 6, 2024, 1:00 PM EDT
PM - Andrea Bild, Ph.D.
View Opportunity Details
THEA
Funding BAA: Transplantation of Human Eye Allografts
- Proposal Due Date and Time: Closed
PM - Calvin Roberts, M.D.
View Opportunity Details
HEROES
Funding BAA: Health Care Rewards to Achieve Improved Outcomes
- Hybrid Proposers’ Day: February 13-14, 2024 in Washington, D.C. and virtually
- Proposers' Day registration, deadline to register by February 5, 2024, 5 PM ET
- Anticipated Abstract Due Date: May 31, 2024
- Anticipated Proposal Due Date: October 31, 2024, 5:00 PM EDT
Darshak Sanghavi, M.D.
View Opportunity Details
PARADIGM
Funding BAA: Platform Accelerating Rural Access to Distributed and Integrated Medical Care
- Anticipated Proposal Due Date: April 26, 2024 4:00 pm EDT
PM - Bon Ku, M.D., MPP
View Opportunity Details
APECx
Funding BAA - Antigens Predicted for Broad Viral Efficacy through Computational Experimentation
- Abstract Due Date and time: closed
- Proposal Due Date and Time: closed
PM - Andy Kilianski, Ph.D.
View Program Details
ARPA-H BDF Toolbox
Funding BAA: ARPA-H Biomedical Data Fabric Toolbox
- Proposal Due Date and Time: closed
PM - Andrea Bild, Ph.D.
View Program Details
PSI
Funding BAA - Precision Surgical Interventions
- Abstract Due Date: closed
- Proposal Due Date and Time: closed
PM - Ileana Hancu, Ph.D.
View Program Details
DIGIHEALS
Funding BAA - Scaling Health Applications Research for Everyone (SHARE)
- Abstract Due Date: closed
- Proposal Due Date and Time: closed
PM - Andrew Carney
View Program Details
REACT
Funding BAA - Resilient Extended Automatic Cell Therapies
- Abstract Due Date: closed
- Proposal Due Date and time: closed
PM - Paul E. Sheehan, Ph.D.
View Program Details
NITRO
Novel Innovations for Tissue Regeneration in Osteoarthritis
- Closed
PM - Ross Uhrich, DMD, MBA
View Program Details
A nationwide health innovation network
Informational Video: https://youtu.be/DbGrU0vfhdE
Spoke Membership process:
Customer Experience Hub: https://www.customerexperiencehub.org/how-to-join/
Investor Catalyst Hub: https://investorcatalysthub.org/spoke-network/ and Informational Webinar for Prospective Spokes
ARPANET-H is a nationwide health innovation network that connects people, innovators, and institutions. This network is anchored by three regional hubs — one focused on designing for the American people and their caregivers, another on catalyzing markets and industry to ensure solutions thrive after government funding, and a third hub in the National Capital Region and focused on coordinating with federal partners and managing ARPA-H’s programs.
The three hubs of ARPANET-H will lead specific focus areas, including streamlining customer experiences, catalyzing investors, and developing stakeholder and operations efforts.
- The Customer Experience hub will focus on developing health solutions that will be accessible, needed, and readily adopted. It will take a proactive approach to diversify clinical trials, reach representative patient populations, and more leading to better and more equitable health outcomes for all. This hub’s physical location will be located in Dallas, Texas.
- The Investor Catalyst hub will focus on speeding the transition of innovative ideas into practical, accessible solutions that deliver for Americans by engaging with researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors. This hub’s physical location will be located in Cambridge, Mass., in the greater Boston area.
- The Stakeholder and Operations hub will be adjacent to many intergovernmental partners and stakeholders. Following a competitive review, ARPA-H will select the final site located in the National Capital Region, using federal leasing and acquisition procedures. The announcement is anticipated later in 2023.
Customer Experience
The Customer Experience consortium puts people at the center of ARPA-H programs and projects, developing technologies that will be accessible, desirable, and affordable for all. It will incorporate human centered and design-thinking principles in a variety of ways, including reaching patient populations and engaging with providers. This consortium is located in Dallas, TX and managed by our Customer Experience Hub.
Investor Catalyst
The Investor Catalyst consortium ensures that successes in research can reach the people who need them, fostering collaboration among researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors to speed the transition of innovative ideas into practical, accessible solutions. It is focused on commercializing technologies, understanding market dynamics, and providing business support to accelerate healthcare innovation. This consortium is located in the greater Boston area, MA, managed by our Investor Catalyst Hub.
Spokes Equal Reach
Hubs are responsible for persistently retaining and recruiting spokes across the United States and its territories. Spokes harness a broad range of expertise, community voices, and geographic spread. They are dynamic and change with the needs of ARPA-H programs. The network is built upon a principle of representing and including the diversity of our country, and making sure that any success resulting from an ARPA-H program can reach everyone who needs it.
Helpful tips and templates
- ARPA-H April 2023 Open BAA
- ARPA-H Open BAA FAQs
- May 1, 2023 UCSF Informational Webinar (video)
- May 1, 2023 UCSF Informational Webinar (Keith Yamamoto slide deck)
- May 1, 2023 UCSF Informational Webinar (Gretchen Kiser slide deck)
- ARPA-H April 2023 Proposer's Day Video
- Renee Wegrzyn, Director of ARPA-H, February 2, 2023 at Stanford University
For internal UCSF support for responding to any ARPA-H or ARPANET-H funding opportunity, please check out resources within the Research Development Office (https://rdo.ucsf.edu/advanced-research-projects-agency-health-arpa-h) and the Office of Sponsored Research (osr.ucsf.edu)
Background
A new federal funding agency - the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) – was created to speed medical breakthroughs to patients who urgently need them. ARPA-H is focused on a bold mission to advance high-potential, high-impact biomedical and health research that cannot be readily accomplished through traditional research or commercial activity. ARPA-H will make big bets to build high-payoff capabilities or platforms to drive biomedical breakthroughs – ranging from molecular to societal – that will provide transformative solutions for all individuals. ARPA-H will be looking for projects that are transformational, driving biomedical breakthroughs. They will not support incremental research efforts. They seek to support "Imagine if..." projects.
In September 2022, President Joe Biden appointed longtime biologist and former government scientist Renee Wegrzyn as the first director of the nascent Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. Wegrzyn is a biomedical scientist and an entrepreneur in synthetic biology with a decade of experience leading multiple biotech projects at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). She has professional experience working for two of the institutions that inspired the creation of ARPA-H—DARPA and Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA).
For the 2024 budget, Congress has provided an increase of $500 million to ARPA-H’s start-up budget of $1 billion. This new health innovation incubator, modeled after DARPA and ARPA-E, is working to jumpstart multi-sector-fueled, high-risk/high-reward science aimed at shattering barriers and forging progress against existing and emergent health threats. Importantly, the bill also includes authorizing language that will guide the next phase of this agency’s unique and important trajectory.
Research Areas and Priorities
ARPA-H will make big bets to build high-payoff capabilities or platforms to drive biomedical breakthroughs – ranging from molecular to societal – that will provide transformative solutions for all individuals. The focus areas below illustrate the types of work and impact that ARPA-H may pursue as it hires its first PMs.
Health Science Futures - Expanding what’s technically possible
Accelerating advances across research areas and removing limitations that stymie progress towards solutions. The tools and platforms developed apply to a broad range of diseases.
Scalable Solutions - Reaching everyone quickly
Addressing challenges that include geography, distribution, manufacturing, data and information, and economies of scale to create programs that result in impactful, timely, and equitable solutions.
Proactive Health - Keeping people from being patients
Reducing the likelihood that people become patients. Preventative programs will create new capabilities to detect and characterize disease risk and promote treatments and behaviors to anticipate threats to Americans’ health, whether those are viral, bacterial, chemical, physical, or psychological.
Resilient Systems - Building integrated healthcare systems
Developing capabilities, business models, and integrations to weather crises such as pandemics, social disruption, climate change, and economic instability. Resilient systems need to sustain themselves between crises – from the molecular to the societal – to better achieve outcomes that advance American health and wellbeing.
ARPA-H will be looking for projects that are transformational, driving biomedical breakthroughs. They will not support incremental research efforts. They seek to support "Imagine if..." projects. They will ask proposals to address the following set of questions about a well-defined problem.
ARPA-(H)eilmeier Questions - Towards a Well-Defined Problem
- What are you trying to do? What health problem are you trying to solve?
- How does this get done at present? Who does it? What are the limitations of present approaches?
- What is new about our approach? Why do we think we can be successful at this time?
- Who cares? If we succeed, what difference will it make?
- What are the risks? That may prevent you from reaching your objectives? Any risks the program itself may present?
- How long will it take?
- How much will it cost?
- What are our mid-term and final exams to check for success?
- To ensure equitable access for all people, how will cost, accessibility, and user experience be addressed?
- How might this program be misperceived or misused (and how can we prevent that from happening)?