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About ARPA-H

The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) is a federal initiative supporting research in high-impact areas to drive biomedical and health breakthroughs. With a $2.5 billion budget, ARPA-H’s mission is to focus on leveraging research advances for real world impact.

Taking inspiration from the DARPA model of research in the defense field, the ARPA-H model employs an innovative, radical approach to research that is directed at solving practical problems. In contrast to other funding mechanisms for health research, the ARPA-H model advances high-potential research that could not otherwise be accomplished through traditional research or commercial avenues.

We provide this page as a resource to Johns Hopkins researchers looking for opportunities to advance their research through this new, exciting program. Please reach out to the Research Development Team if you are interested in submitting an application for an open ARPA-H program.

QUESTIONS?

Contact the Research Development Team.

FAQ

Download a list of frequently asked questions.

FUNDED PROJECTS

Browse ARPA-H supported projects.

Open Programs

HEalth care Rewards to Achieve Improved OutcomES (HEROES) aims to trial and validate a radically different approach to creating preventative care incentives in the health market.

To protect hospital operations, keep devices secured, and ensure continuity of patient care, the Universal PatchinG and Remediation for Autonomous DEfense (UPGRADE) program envisions an autonomous cyber-threat solution that enables proactive, scalable, and synchronized security updates. Importantly, this software platform will enable simulated evaluations of potential vulnerabilities’ impact and adapt to any hospital environment across a wide array of common devices.

The Platform Optimizing SynBio for Early Intervention and Detection in ONcology, or POSEIDON, program aims to fundamentally change the field of cancer screening by developing first-in-class, over-the-counter, MCED tests that screen for 30+ cancers at Stage 1.

The Groundbreaking Lymphatic Interventions and Drug Exploration program, or GLIDE, envisions a future where doctors have a wide variety of therapeutic tools targeting abnormal lymphatic structure and function.

Performance and Reliability Evaluation for Continuous Modifications and Useability of Artificial Intelligence (PRECISE-AI) aims to bring together machine learning experts, health information specialists, and clinicians to address five technical areas to develop capabilities that can automatically detect and mitigate AI model degradation.

ARPA-H is accepting submissions to its Mission Office-specific ISOs. The four Mission Office-specific ISOs include:

  • Health Science Futures - Accelerating advances across research areas and removing limitations that stymie progress towards solutions for broad ranges of disease and conditions.
  • Proactive Health - Creating capabilities to detect and characterize disease risk and promote treatments and behaviors to anticipate threats whether viral, bacterial, chemical, physical, or psychological.
  • Resilient Systems - Addressing systemic challenges across the healthcare and public health landscape by investing in cutting-edge technologies that address long-standing gaps in the quality, efficacy, and consistent availability of care.
  • Scalable Solutions - Addressing challenges including geography, distribution, manufacturing, data and information, and economies of scale to develop impactful, timely, and equitable solutions.

Key Considerations

In addition to the technical merits of proposals, the translation and commercialization of innovations developed using ARPA-H investments are very important considerations for their awards. Each Program RFP will have specific requirements, but in general, ARPA-H applicants should be prepared to address:

  • Teaming/partnering with industry – Each program has specific guidelines for teaming, but in general it will strengthen applications to show a plan for partnering and in many cases aligning with industry stakeholders who can complement the contributions of academia.
  • The Commercialization Plan – As ARPA-H is focused on solutions and real-world impact, applicants should be prepared to speak to their strategy for bringing solutions into practice.

Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures (JHTV) can assist faculty applicants with teaming support (identifying and connecting proposal teams with faculty experts and corporate collaborators) and the development/review of commercialization plans. Please contact the Research Development Team for assistance in these areas.

Award contract and IP

ARPA-H places significant importance on intellectual property as part of its awarding, planning and implementation processes. IP rights are negotiated between ARPA-H and the proposers during award discussions.

It is important that proposing teams understand that ARPA-H’s approach to IP is designed to primarily facilitate broad industry participation, while ensuring unrestricted access and utility/application of the resulting technologies to benefit public health. This means that proposers will need to weigh the IP implications should they wish to pursue alternative commercial paths for their invention.

ARPA-H awards will be categorized as Cooperative Agreements and Other Transactions, not grants. These contract mechanisms allow close collaboration, and oversight from ARPA-H throughout the project as well as IP flexibility to ensure the objectives of funded projects can be realized. The specific type of contracting mechanism for any award will be based on what best fits the project.

Additional things to know

The three ongoing concurrent awards with ARPA-H limit applies to the prime FAR procurements, cooperative agreements, grants, and/or OTs an entity has with ARPA-H.

Each Program has a Proposers’ Day/Proposer’s Call, which is an optional event for potential proposer community, but they are important networking and information gathering opportunities that applicants should try to attend.

Unlike other federal grants, the ARPA-H program staff are active members of each grant project. They provide regular input and monitor milestones against the Scope of Work closely. Applicants should prepare for an especially collaborative, hands-on relationship with the funding agency.

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    265 Garland Hall
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    (443) 927-1957

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