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January 16, 2025

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ARPA-H Gives Startups Fast Cash with Few Strings to Transform Health

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By Ryan Flinn

ARPA-H Gives Startups Fast Cash with Few Strings to Transform Health media

Overview

ARPA-H streamlined application and 30-minute pitches aid funding for academic and industry healthcare innovators.

High-Risk, High-Reward Nondilutive Funding Accelerates Research

The newest – and one of the smallest – agencies inside the massive U.S. government bureaucracy is transforming how healthcare entrepreneurs access federal funding, bringing Silicon Valley speed to a process traditionally known for red tape and lengthy delays.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) demonstrated this through a $113 million investment in women's health innovation that went from concept to funding 24 awardees in just six months. The J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference showcased the agency and its programs in a Jan. 14, 2025, panel session, The ARPA-H Advantage: Transforming Health Through Non-Dilutive Capital - Women's Health as a Case Study. Seema Kumar, CEO of Cure, which is a spoke for both ARPA-H’s Investor Catalyst Hub and its Consumer Experience Hub, moderated the session that featured a Sprint for Women’s Health awardee and ARPA-H leaders.

"In the federal funding ecosystem, there really isn't a funder that is there to de-risk [healthcare] technology and make sure that they can move out of the federal government into the ecosystem and be financially sustainable," said Renee Wegrzyn, PhD, ARPA-H Director, during the panel. "This is a huge gap."

ARPA-H Enables Pioneering Technologies for the Most Challenging Health Problems

ARPA-H was established in 2022 as an independent agency within the National Institutes of Health (NIH), with the director reporting directly to the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). Its creation drew inspiration from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), renowned for pioneering technologies that led to innovations such as the internet, GPS and even Apple’s SIRI.

A significant motivation for ARPA-H’s establishment was to address critical gaps in healthcare that traditional funding struggled to fill. By adopting a high-risk, high-reward model similar to DARPA’s, ARPA-H aims to accelerate the development of transformative solutions that are not readily achievable through conventional research or commercial activities.

The ARPA-H “Sprint for Women’s Health” program focuses on an area that has been severely underfunded. For instance, a 2024 report highlighted that the National Institutes of Health allocates just 11 percent of its annual budget to research specifically targeting women’s health. And while venture capitalists increased their investment in the space 300 percent between 2018 and 2023, the amount only comprises 2 percent of the total funding, according to Forbes. This disparity has led to gaps in understanding and treating conditions that predominantly or only affect women.

ARPA-H is a Non-Traditional Partner

Unlike traditional government grants that can take 18 months to process, ARPA-H streamlined its application to three pages and 30-minute pitches. The agency lets companies retain their intellectual property while providing milestone-based funding.

The approach attracted more than 1,700 applications from 45 states and 34 countries, with half coming from companies with fewer than 10 employees, according to Wegrzyn.

“There's a lot of people that are scared to work with the government, or maybe it's a really high barrier for them, so we wanted to lower that barrier,” said Jenica Patterson, PhD, Portfolio Lead for ARPA-H's Sprint for Women's Health program, who spoke on the panel. "We reached those non-traditional partners that typically don't work with the federal government."

The ARPA-H Sprint for Women’s Health uses two funding tracks: “Spark,” with $3 million for early-stage research, and “LaunchPad,” with $10 million for later-stage development. Launchpad recipients receive additional support from entrepreneurs-in-residence and accelerator programs to speed commercialization.

Among the recipients is Daré Bioscience, which is developing an at-home treatment for human papillomavirus (HPV), which can cause cervical cancer. The company’s product is a soft gel vaginal insert containing two established antiretroviral drugs, lopinavir and ritonavir.

“There aren't many cancers where you can say we know exactly what causes it, and it's a virus, but cervical cancer is one of them,” said Sabrina Johnson, Founder and CEO of Daré Bioscience. “We actually do know the virus, we actually have antivirals at our disposal that have demonstrated effectiveness in killing the virus, and there's nothing available.”

ARPA-H Encourages Clinical Trials that Reflect Patients

ARPA-H is also embedding equity considerations into its approach. Many clinical trials struggle to recruit diverse patients that accurately reflect the patient population. A study that looked at minority representation in clinical trials during a 25 year period found the number was less than 4 percent. To overcome these challenges, Ross Uhrich, DMD, MBA, Program Manager at ARPA-H, requires clinical trials in his osteoarthritis program to reflect actual disease demographics.

"The clinical trials must have that exact distribution of the disease reflected,” said Uhrich.

“That's a first.”

ARPA-H program managers serve three-year terms, with a goal of creating urgency to deliver results. The agency can reimburse the FDA to accelerate programs and help establish new regulatory frameworks – capabilities that could benefit the wider healthcare ecosystem.

"Every time we launch a program, we have this framework of 10 questions that asks: What's the problem trying to solve? How's it done today? What's new in your approach? But also, how are you looking at costs and accessibility?" said Wegrzyn.

ARPA-H Launching Rare Disease, Lifespan Programs

The model is expanding beyond women's health. Later this month, ARPA-H will launch its RAPID program, to fund innovations that shorten diagnostic time for patients with rare diseases, and PROSPR, which will support development of therapies designed to extend the lifespan of Americans.

For entrepreneurs and healthcare innovators, ARPA-H represents a new pathway to advance transformative solutions. The agency actively works to de-risk projects for follow-on funding, helping ensure innovations reach patients.

"We want to be a partner, and we want to help change the trajectory of a field," Wegrzyn said.

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