Rush University Medical Center

Rush University Medical Center, doing business as Rush Concierge Medicine, is a non-profit academic medical center based in Chicago, Illinois, that operates as a prime recipient on federal research grants and as a prime and sub-recipient on federal contracts. The organization competes predominantly in full-and-open federal research funding rather than set-asides, delivering biomedical and health services research, clinical trial execution, genomic and microbiome analysis, and medical training services to federal agencies across 88 distinct customer agencies.

Rush functions primarily as a grant recipient rather than a traditional contractor. The National Institutes of Health dominates the customer base — the National Institute on Aging alone accounts for 222 awards, while the broader NIH portfolio spans the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (49 awards), the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (40 awards), the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (37 awards, $28.1 million combined potential value), and the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (35 awards, $48.8 million combined potential value). Recent work includes a $1.52 million National Institute of Mental Health project grant for human-mouse chimera modeling of HIV infection in the central nervous system (awarded April 1, 2026, through March 31, 2028), a $942 thousand National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases grant for primary care weight management intervention development following anti-obesity medication discontinuation (awarded September 16, 2025, through August 31, 2028), and a $643,185 National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases grant for total shoulder arthroplasty polyethylene wear prediction modeling (awarded June 10, 2026, through April 30, 2031). The organization also holds a $482,999 Department of Agriculture grant under the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program for the Food Is Medicine Veggie RX produce prescription initiative (awarded September 30, 2025, through September 29, 2028).

Beyond research grants, Rush holds a Basic Ordering Agreement with the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery established April 15, 2026, running through April 30, 2036, for medical services and healthcare support with no specified ceiling. Recent contract awards include a $24,242 NIH Clinical Center purchase order for genomics and microbiome core facility services (awarded July 30, 2026) and a $13,568 Bureau of Medicine and Surgery delivery order under the CDC's Safe Healthcare, Epidemiology, and Prevention Research Development Program IDIQ (awarded April 16, 2026). The organization operates as a subrecipient on federal research grants from prime institutions such as Columbia University, Northwestern University, University of Chicago, and multiple other academic and research organizations, contributing neuropathological specimens, brain tissue, clinical data, laboratory analysis, and scientific expertise to Alzheimer's disease research, immunology, infectious disease, and genomics consortia.

Rush's federal award footprint shows strong growth trajectory: 58 awards in 2022 escalated to 152 in 2024 before moderating to 94 in 2025, with 44 awards logged through mid-2026. The combined potential value across all 1,004 prime and sub awards totals $432.2 million, though obligated dollars stand at $1.53 billion, reflecting multi-year funding and carryover on active grants. The recompete cliff window of the next twenty-four months presents $2.1 million in combined potential value across 66 awards reaching ultimate completion. The Service Contract Inventory dataset captures $4.7 million in invoiced federal service contract revenue in FY2022 across 3.5 FTEs (derived from contract-level reporting); SCI activity dropped to zero reported invoicing in FY2023 and FY2024, indicating the organization's federal engagement shifted predominantly toward grant work. On the service contracts captured in SCI, median government-paid rates ran around $116.06/hr, with senior labor pricing through $571.81/hr and junior-level labor at $86.51/hr. Across SCI-reportable prime contracts, 18% of total contractor hours were performed by named subcontractors, with four subcontractor entities identified across the SCI dataset.

As a grant recipient and research institution, Rush does not operate under typical contractor teaming or sub-engagement patterns; its role is to execute investigator-initiated research, provide specimens and biorepository services, conduct clinical assessments and trials, and contribute scientific expertise to multi-institutional consortia. The organization is positioned as a primary research site for neurodegenerative disease studies, infectious disease research, clinical outcomes, and implementation science across federal health and life sciences agencies.