Metis Foundation

Metis Foundation, a San Antonio-based tax-exempt non-profit organization, serves as a prime recipient of federal contracts and grants in military medical research and development, with concentrated work in trauma, immunology, cardiovascular health, and regenerative medicine for the Defense Health Agency and Department of Defense Uniformed Services University. The vendor competes full and open (no set-asides) across defense health funding streams, operating as prime on 71% of recent awards and as a sub-recipient on 29%, with work spanning both definitive contracts and cooperative and project grants under CFDA 12.420 (Military Medical Research and Development) and allied programs.

Metis Foundation's customer concentration is heavily weighted toward defense health. The top five agencies account for 93% of awards by count, led by the Defense Health Agency (34 awards, $935 thousand combined potential value) and the Department of the Army Medical Command (13 awards, $2.7 million combined potential value), followed by the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (14 awards). The gap between award count and dollar value reflects the nature of the work: many smaller research grants anchor the majority of awards, while a smaller number of larger contracts carry the remainder of potential value.

Metis Foundation's recent prime contract work includes a $935 thousand definitive contract awarded September 30, 2025, by the Defense Health Agency for research and development services supporting a study titled "Mapping Temporal Dynamics of Immune Responses in Severe Multisystem and Orthopedic Polytrauma Using Single-Cell Multiomics" (ultimate completion September 29, 2027), and a $2.7 million definitive contract awarded September 23, 2022, by the Department of Defense Medical Command for medical research support and project management services (ultimate completion March 18, 2027). Recent grant work as prime recipient includes a cooperative agreement from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences awarded September 1, 2026, for "Medics Autonomously Stopping Hemorrhage (MASH) Independent Validation & Verification"; a $267 thousand project grant from the Defense Health Agency awarded September 1, 2025, under CFDA 12.420 for research investigating therapeutic effects of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha agonists on combat-induced proliferative vitreoretinopathy; a $2.1 million project grant from the Defense Health Agency awarded September 1, 2023, for development of a "sprayable antimicrobial and regeneration promoting foam scaffold for the treatment of non-healing skin wounds"; and multiple cooperative agreements from the Uniformed Services University focused on the Military Cardiovascular Outcomes Research (MICOR) program.

Activity declined in recent years — fourteen awards in 2024, dropping to seven in 2025 and two through September 2026 — with fourteen awards (combined potential value $3.6 million) reaching ultimate completion inside the next twenty-four months and therefore facing recompete. Metis Foundation acts as a sub-recipient under prime grantees including the University of Pittsburgh, the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Colorado State University, the University of Maryland Baltimore, and the University of Texas at Austin, providing research staff oversight, scientific support, and biomedical research coordination on grants ranging from treatment of blast-induced auditory injury to cardiovascular disease modeling and burn care innovation. The vendor also holds one federal contract sub-award with The Geneva Foundation (awarded December 10, 2024) for research and development services related to therapeutic effects of a PTP inhibitor on sensorineural hearing loss.

Metis Foundation's capability portfolio centers on medical research coordination, scientific support, and advanced biomedical development for military-relevant conditions including polytrauma, burn injury, vascularized composite allotransplantation, cardiovascular disease in service members, and combat casualty care. Place of performance is San Antonio, Texas, with research coordination extending across military medical centers and university research institutions where sub-awards are placed. The vendor's non-profit structure and defense health specialization position it as a research enabler and project management intermediary rather than a technology or service provider, with federal dollars obligated ($82.8 million) substantially exceeding combined potential value ($3.6 million), a pattern consistent with research grants where multi-year awards are obligated upfront.