The New Kid on the Block: ARPA-H

[SurfingDoctor]

Well, it isn't approved yet, but it seems as if there is gonna be a new funding agency, for the time being housed within NIH, called ARPA-H (ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY FOR HEALTH (ARPA-H)):

ARPA-H

Recent advances in biomedical science—from immunotherapy to treat cancer, to the highly effective COVID-19 vaccines—demonstrate the strengths and successes of the U.S. biomedical enterprise.

www.nih.gov

It doesn't really have much structure to it at the moment, but it sounds like a joint non-profit/for-profit type of model like DARPA for competitions surrounding "high-risk, high-reward" innovations in biomedical science. Having done peer-review for DARPA, I imagine this would be similar in that the review aspects just give guidance about the project, but the project managers pick and choose as they see fit within the scope of what is the current "need".

It's an interesting idea to say the least. I get the sense that this is a little to "pie-in-the-sky" and people saw COVID and we like "hey, we created testing and a vaccine really fast, let's do that for everything" but don't quite realize how heterogenous human disease can be. But maybe people are willing to forego that for the next "breakthrough".

Theoretically, the program could start as early as 2022, but it's the government, so who know.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Dormouse]

If this new agency is within NIH are they proposing to divert money from existing ICs?

the project managers pick and choose as they see fit within the scope of what is the current "need".

What do you think is the need they're going to pick?

 

[SurfingDoctor]

If this new agency is within NIH are they proposing to divert money from existing ICs?

What do you think is the need they're going to pick?

I don’t think they know, but yes, generally I think it’s under the NIH umbrella, but it’s not housed within one of the institutions. Will it divert money? I don’t know. I thought I read there was new money for this program through the 21st Century Cures Act, but I might be misremembering. It sounds like the structure is similar to the DoD/DARPA where there are program managers who decide what gets funded. The need is based on more global program initiatives. For instance, and I only know this because I participated in it, most DARPA grant mechanism have fiscal year goals. Like the Military Burn program has specific criteria grants must fulfill with special emphasis on particular items. The grant must specifically address these items or the impact score is low. Even if you wanted to study AI guided performance based burn resuscitation metrics but the grant mechanism mission statement was on burn wound bioengineered dressings, the resuscitation grant would not be funded because it did not address that fiscal years predesignated need even though it very much fits a burn-related need. The need comes from planning committees that lead to focused consensus statements.