The mission of ARPA-H is to accelerate better health outcomes for everyone by supporting the development of high-impact solutions to society's most challenging health problems. Awardees will develop groundbreaking new ways to tackle health-related challenges through high- potential, high-impact biomedical and health research. With a scope spanning the molecular to the societal, ARPA-H seeks proposals that aim to rapidly achieve better health outcomes across patient populations, communities, diseases, and health conditions, including in support of the Cancer Moonshot. Proposals are expected to use innovative approaches to enable revolutionary advances in science, technology, or systems.
ARPA-H will also foster innovations that are entirely novel proofs of concept or contribute directly to advance the goals of government-wide initiatives such as the Cancer Moonshot; Advancing the American Bioeconomy; Clinical Trial Readiness; the National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health; the National Action Plan for Combatting Anti-Microbial Resistance; or unity agenda priorities on addressing mental health and curbing the opioid epidemic.
Specifically excluded are proposals that represent an evolutionary or incremental advance in the current state of the art. Additionally, proposals directed towards policy changes, traditional education and training, or center coordination and construction of physical infrastructure are outside the scope of the ARPA-H mission.
ARPA-H has identified four initial focus areas that are a priority for investment:
(1) Health Science Futures; (2) Scalable Solutions;
(3) Proactive Health;
(4) Resilient Systems;
as well as targeted investments in tools that enable quantitative measurements of health outcomes, promote end-user adoption, facilitate participatory research, and advance relevant Ethical, Legal, and Societal Implications (ELSI) topics. ARPA-H may also consider submissions outside of these thrust areas if the proposal involves the development of a novel capability to improve health outcomes or prolong well-being, especially if it would help either a substantial number of people or a population that currently lacks effective treatment options.
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ARPA-H will foster innovations across the spectrum of technology readiness – from foundational science to the introduction of new prototypes into the marketplace. To receive funding, efforts must align with ARPA-H’s mission to accelerate better health outcomes and undertake research that cannot otherwise be pursued within the health funding ecosystem due to the nature of the technical risk.
In general, a clinical trial is eligible to be funded as part of a project awarded through the Open BAA. However, ARPA-H will not fund projects that exclusively involve clinical trials of otherwise
developed products. Instead, it is expected that the clinical trial would be proposed as part of a broader R&D effort that first includes development of a high-impact technology.