Friends Research Institute, Inc.

Friends Research Institute, Inc., a Baltimore-based nonprofit research organization, conducts federal grant-funded research and clinical trials on opioid use disorder, substance use, HIV prevention and treatment, and related health disparities as a prime recipient of federal grants (77% of awards) and as a sub-recipient on research grants from academic institutions.

Friends Research Institute's federal footprint is dominated by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which funds 46 of the organization's 99 total awards across the portfolio. The top five customer agencies—NIDA, the broader National Institutes of Health, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration—account for 82% of recent awards by count. The organization's combined obligated dollars total $153.8 million against a combined potential value of $245 thousand, indicating mature, heavily invoiced grant work. The source lists representative prime grants including a $4.18 million NIDA Cooperative Agreement (awarded September 2025, concluding May 2030) for a patient preference trial comparing extended-release injectable buprenorphine versus sublingual buprenorphine-naloxone for individuals re-entering the community from jail, with sub-awardees Duke University and the University of Maryland, Baltimore providing qualitative research, telemedicine coordination, and medical oversight; a $783,321 National Institute of Nursing Research Project Grant (awarded September 2025, concluding July 2030) for the Patient Navigation Trial for Housing and Health (PATHH), a randomized controlled trial adapting patient navigation services to improve housing stability and healthcare engagement for women survivors of violence; and a $448,565 NIDA Project Grant (awarded April 2026, concluding March 2027) for a randomized controlled trial of the Supporting Treatment for Opioids and Recovery Capital (STORC) intervention combining patient navigation with support person engagement to improve treatment outcomes for postpartum women with opioid use disorder.

The organization's research portfolio centers on evidence-based behavioral and implementation interventions addressing opioid use disorder treatment engagement, recovery capital enhancement, care transitions from carceral settings to community, racial and gender disparities in addiction treatment and HIV care, and peer support and mobile health technologies. Recent work includes trials of patient navigation interventions across hospital systems to improve opioid agonist treatment entry and reduce readmissions; comparative effectiveness studies of medications for opioid use disorder in incarceration and community settings; implementation science studies documenting factors supporting treatment scale-up; AI-driven text messaging combined with peer recovery coaching to address social determinants of health and racial disparities; and development and testing of stigma-reduction interventions for people living with HIV who use substances and for transgender and gender-diverse persons.

Friends Research Institute sits as a sub-recipient on academic-led grants from New York University, Duke University, UCLA, the University of Maryland Baltimore, Stanford University, the Miriam Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine, Weill Cornell, and Johns Hopkins University, with roles including participant recruitment and screening, on-site research coordination in Maryland and Washington DC carceral settings, evaluation and data analysis, and co-investigator contributions to study design and manuscript preparation. Activity has moderated in recent years (ten awards in 2024, five in 2025, four in 2026 year-to-date), and seven awards face ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months, creating recompete opportunity for incumbent researchers.