Advarra, Inc.

Advarra, Inc., doing business as Chesapeake IRB, provides institutional review board (IRB) services, protocol review, and human subjects protection compliance support to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other components of the Department of Health and Human Services as a prime contractor on the majority of its federal work (60% of recent awards) and as a subcontractor supporting vaccine development and clinical trial oversight programs. The Columbia, Maryland–based for-profit company operates in full-and-open competition with no SBA set-aside designations across its federal footprint.

Advarra's customer concentration is acute and NIH-centric. Six awards (100% of combined potential value, accounting for the vendor's roughly $15.5 million combined potential value across all recent awards) run through the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), anchored by a $13.999 million single-award Indefinite Delivery Contract awarded April 1, 2024, with performance extending through March 31, 2031. The NHLBI accounts for four awards with $266 thousand combined potential value, NIEHS and NICHD each carry one award ($143 thousand and $80 thousand respectively), and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality holds four awards valued at $9 thousand combined. The top-customer rankings track closely — NIAID dominates both volume and dollars — with the remainder of the portfolio scattered across HHS components including the FDA and ASPR. Advarra's NAICS footprint clusters in 541710 (Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences, except Nanotechnology and Biotechnology), with secondary coding in all-other professional and technical services and computer-related services.

On the NIAID contract, Advarra serves as the Institutional Review Board of record for select domestic sites on NIAID-sponsored clinical research, delivering protocol review, study oversight, and compliance monitoring for infectious-disease and allergy research through December 31, 2029. A $995 thousand delivery order issued April 1, 2024 (under the parent IDC) focuses on domestic IRB services for select NIAID studies extending through the end of 2029. Additional prime work includes a $194.9 thousand NHLBI IRB services purchase order (September 2021 through August 2026), a $143.34 thousand NIEHS Clinical Conductor software license and renewal (July 2024 through July 2027), and a $30.15 thousand NHLBI investigational device and investigational new drug protocol review purchase order (June 2026 through May 2027). In its subcontractor role, Advarra provides IRB and IBC (Institutional Biosafety Committee) services to the International Aids Vaccine Initiative on a filovirus vaccine development contract (June 2025) and supports FDA campaign evaluation work under Executive Information Systems (June 2025). As a grant sub-recipient, Advarra serves as the central or simplified IRB for the Immunetolerance Network (ITN) clinical trials at the Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason (multiple awards from January 2024 through March 2026) and provides protocol review support under University of Tennessee grants (October 2023 onwards).

Activity has grown modestly — one award in 2022 to five in 2024 — though 2025–2026 volume has softened to four and two awards respectively. The vendor faces three awards (combined potential value $368 thousand) completing within the next twenty-four months. Three awards sit on a Multiple Award Schedule vehicle; the NIAID IDC accounts for the bulk of remaining work. SCI-reportable service-contract activity is minimal: the source captures only two records (0 prime / 2 sub) with 0.5 FTEs delivered in FY2024, indicating that most Advarra work sits below the $150 thousand SCI reporting threshold or falls into goods and micro-purchases outside SCI scope. The vendor operates as a sub on roughly 40% of recent awards, suggesting a balanced posture between prime delivery and subcontractor support roles on larger research grants, though its dominant customer relationship (NIAID) runs as a direct prime contract.