ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY for HEALTH (ARPA-H)

The Department of Health and Human Services National Institutes of Health (ARPA-H) funds transformative biomedical and health breakthroughs through Assistance Listing 93.384, with the most recent grant award dated February 23, 2026.

ARPA-H has demonstrated consistent recent activity, awarding 42 grants since 2020 with an accelerating cadence: 1 award in 2020, 5 in 2023, 26 in 2024, 9 in 2025, and 1 in 2026. The program funds revolutionary scientific discoveries, translation of discoveries into transformative health technologies, platform capabilities across multiple disciplines, and proofs of concept with clinical application potential, alongside development of early disease detection and intervention methods using computational tools and predictive models. Awarded work spans engineered bioprinted organs (vascularized liver tissue for transplant, renal tissue constructs), intraoperative surgical imaging and guidance systems (real-time tumor margin detection, autonomous robotic surgery modules), cell and gene therapies (CAR T-cell vaccines for solid cancers, herpesvirus vaccines using AI-driven antigen design), wearable cardiac monitoring devices, healthcare cybersecurity systems, and large-scale electronic health record data platforms.

Awards are predominantly Cooperative Agreements (95% of 42 awards) with a small share of Project Grants (5%). Combined federal dollars obligated total $860.1 million across two funding agencies. The Department of Health and Human Services National Institutes of Health leads by federal dollars at $551.8 million across 15 awards, while the Department of the Interior Departmental Offices Interior Business Center provided $308.4 million across 27 awards. Recent award magnitudes range from $2.7 million to $88.6 million, with typical project durations of 3 to 5 years.

Representative recent awards include a $18.3 million cooperative agreement for patient-specific bioprinted liver using iPSCs (September 2025), a $18 million award for immunocompetent vascularized liver tissue development (September 2025), and an $11.1 million award for a dual-action CAR GD T-cell therapy targeting solid cancers (January 2025). Multiple open grant opportunities are actively posted, including the Emerging Health Innovators Initiative (due February 5, 2025), the Ocular Laboratory for Analysis of Biomarkers program (due April 14, 2025), and several office-wide Innovative Solutions Openings across Resilient Systems, Scalable Solutions, Proactive Health, and Health Science Futures with deadlines extending through March 2025. All applicant types are eligible, including for-profit and non-profit organizations, academic institutions, and small businesses; nondomestic applicants may participate when teaming with a domestic entity.