One Year of ARPA-H and its First Funding Opportunity

Apr 6

The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), is a new agency of the United States government aimed at accelerating the development of breakthrough technologies and treatments in the field of health. The idea for ARPA-H was first introduced in early 2021 by President Joe Biden as part of his broader agenda to prioritize scientific research and innovation in the United States. The model emulates its predecessors, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E). While DARPA and ARPA-E are nestled within the Departments of Defense and Energy, respectively, ARPA-H is housed within the National Institutes of Health under the umbrella of the Department of Health and Human Services. The FY23 omnibus appropriations bill provides $1.5 billion for ARPA-H through FY 2025 ($500 million or a 50% increase over FY 2022).

The mission of ARPA-H is to fund "high-risk, high-reward" research projects that have the potential to transform our understanding of human health and disease, with a focus on areas such as cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and pandemic preparedness. Since its establishment in May 2022, the team at ARPA-H – led by a former DARPA Program Manager – has been focused on identifying a location for its headquarters, standing up its programs, and putting together the agency’s first Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) solicitation.

ARPA-H is looking for three 'hubs' for the agency and, in March 2023, the agency announced that it was working with the General Services Administration (GSA) to find an office in the Washington, D.C. area for its first hub. According to ARPA-H, the agency will solicit respondents to identify the geographic locations sites for Hub No. 2 (a customer experience hub for user testing, adoption, access, and trust of ARPHA-H projects) and Hub No. 3 (an investor catalyst to help bring ideas to market), issuing a draft Request for Consortium Agreement (RCA), describing the approach to identify the unique locations and capabilities that best serve the ARPA-H mission.

As part of its one-year, 'open for business’ announcement, ARPA-H also published its first Agency-wide Open BAA, seeking funding proposals for research aiming to improve health outcomes across patient populations, communities, diseases, and health conditions. The BAA calls for proposals to outline breakthrough research and technological advancements. Proposals should investigate unconventional approaches, and challenge accepted assumptions to enable leaps forward in science, technology, systems, or related capabilities. ARPA-H also encourages concepts to advance the objectives of President Biden’s Cancer Moonshot, as well as more disease-agnostic approaches.

On April 4, ARPA-H hosted a webinar discussing their recent BAA. Here are some of the key takeaways from the Tuesday webinar, monitored by Constitution Partners:

ARPA-H wants proposals that are difficult technically. They want large teams of collaborators to come together on the project.
The agency welcomes proposals that may seem far-fetched to others
ARPA-H will not fund projects that are incremental. Entities or individuals that do submit must make sure that the proposed project can be completed on an aggressive timeline.
ARPA-H is not looking for proposals that direct toward policy changes. They also do not want to fund anything specific to product development. Rather, R&D projects are of focus.

If interested on learning more, please get in touch! Additionally, please note that abstracts must be received electronically by 3:00 PM EST on March 14, 2024. The abstract must include: