Rush University Medical Center

Rush University Medical Center, doing business as Rush Concierge Medicine, a tax-exempt non-profit academic medical center headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, serves as a federal prime contractor and grant recipient delivering biomedical research, clinical training, specialized healthcare services, and genomics and microbiome core facility services to federal agencies across health, defense, and research portfolios. The organization competes predominantly in full-and-open federal research funding rather than set-aside categories and operates as a prime on the vast majority of awards (67% prime, 33% sub).

Rush's federal customer base centers overwhelmingly on the National Institutes of Health. The Department of Health and Human Services National Institutes of Health accounts for 165 prime awards, with the National Institute on Aging leading at 230 total awards across all roles. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute anchors the largest dollar concentration at $48.8 million combined potential value across 37 awards, followed by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at $28.1 million across 39 awards. These five customer clusters represent 51% of all award volume. The Department of Health and Human Services dominates the portfolio—NIH institutes collectively fund the vast majority of Rush's federal work, with aging research, musculoskeletal disease, diabetes and kidney disease, allergy and infectious disease, and cancer research driving the majority of recent volume.

Rush holds a Basic Ordering Agreement with the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (N0018926GB006) under which the Navy and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention have placed delivery orders for medical training tuition, fees, and specialized core facility services. Recent orders include tuition and fees for Navy summer-term enrollment ($12,924 and $31,616.50 in May and April 2026), sample analysis services from the NIH Clinical Center for genomics and microbiome analysis ($26,933.50, September 2025; $24,242, July 2026), and epidemiology research support under the CDC's Safe Healthcare, Epidemiology, and Prevention Research Development Program IDIQ ($13,568, April 2026). A small number of task orders also flow through an Indefinite Delivery Contract (DNA00186C0038).

Rush's capability footprint in federal work centers on investigator-initiated biomedical and clinical research. Recent prime grant awards demonstrate strength in neurodegenerative disease mechanisms, including Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (supported by multiple NIH funding mechanisms); orthopedic and musculoskeletal research, including wear in joint implants and periprosthetic infection prevention; infectious disease surveillance and immunology (including HIV-related neurocognitive disorders, Cutibacterium acnes infection diagnostics, and antimicrobial resistance); and specialized medical training. Representative recent work includes a $783,899 National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute grant investigating elementary school start times' impact on sleep and cardiovascular health in children (July 2026), a $749,087 National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases grant on edema mechanisms in nephrotic syndrome (September 2026), a $1.787 billion National Institute of Child Health and Human Development award examining maternal antiretroviral therapy effects on offspring bone and fat development (July 2026), a $2.534 million Defense Health Agency grant evaluating evidence-based treatment options for post-traumatic stress disorder non-responders (September 2024), and a $3.141 million Defense Health Agency award testing combined cognitive processing therapy and stellate ganglion blocks for PTSD (September 2024). Clinical training work includes a $36,000 Air Force purchase order for commercial medical training services (February 2025) and a $47,500 Defense Security Cooperation Agency contract for a Military International Advanced Trauma Training Course (August 2024). Genomics and microbiome core facility services are procured by the NIH Clinical Center through purchase orders at smaller dollar values ($24,242 to $26,933).

Activity has grown significantly year over year—from 58 awards in 2022 to 152 in 2024—before moderating to 95 in 2025 and 78 in 2026 (year-to-date through October). Sixty-seven awards face ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months with combined potential value of $2 million, representing modest recompete exposure. Service Contract Inventory data shows Rush reported $4.7 million in invoiced federal service-contract revenue in FY2022 with roughly 28.2 FTEs performing that work; subsequent fiscal years show zero reported SCI invoicing, suggesting most of Rush's federal revenue flows through grants and specialized service contracts above the $150,000 SCI threshold rather than through reportable service-contract mechanisms. Where SCI data is available, government-paid hourly rates span a spectrum from around $86.51 per hour at the tenth percentile to $571.81 per hour at the ninety-percentile, reflecting a mix of clinical, administrative, and senior research labor.

Rush functions as a subcontractor on federal grants managed by peer academic institutions and research centers. Named prime grantees include the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (Written Exposure Therapy AI enhancement, received October 2026), Regents of the University of Michigan (Fragile X-associated Tremor/Ataxia Syndrome participants and biospecimens, October 2026), Northwestern University (Third Coast Center for AIDS Research, October 2026), Rhode Island Hospital (hemiarthroplasty cartilage bearing performance, September 2026), Columbia University (Alzheimer's Disease research biospecimens and clinical data, multiple awards through 2025), Vanderbilt University Medical Center (clinical trial coordination and neuroprotection research, multiple awards through 2026), and numerous other major research universities and medical centers. Across SCI-reportable prime contracts, subcontractors performed approximately 15% of total contractor hours, with four named subcontractors identified; this signals that Rush primarily staffs its own delivery teams rather than relying heavily on external subs.

Recent federal contract and grant awards show no SBA set-asides applied across the sample, consistent with Rush's posture as a full-and-open competitor. The organization's ownership structure as a tax-exempt non-profit academic medical center does not qualify for minority-owned, women-owned, or other small-business set-aside designations. Federal customers engage Rush for its research infrastructure, clinical expertise, specialized cores (genomics, microbiome analysis, neuropathology, neuroimaging), longitudinal cohort management through the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center and Memory and Aging Project, and investigator leadership in aging research, neurological disease, orthopedics, infectious disease, and mental health.