Children's Hospital LOS Angeles

Children's Hospital Los Angeles, doing business as Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, is a tax-exempt, non-profit pediatric academic medical center and research institution based in Los Angeles, California that operates as both a federal grant recipient and a research services prime contractor. The hospital's federal footprint is concentrated in biomedical research, clinical trials, and evidence-based treatment development for pediatric conditions, delivered as the prime recipient on federal grants and as a sub-recipient on collaborative research awards across the National Institutes of Health and related federal agencies.

The hospital's capability portfolio centers on pediatric research and clinical translation across oncology, neurodevelopmental disorders, metabolic disease, infectious disease, immunology, and critical care. Representative work includes a $1.4 million Defense Health Agency grant (CFDA 12.420) awarded September 2026 to develop CAR T cell immunotherapy for pediatric brain tumors; an $8.473 million National Cancer Institute award (CFDA 93.393) to design and test patient navigation interventions for childhood cancer survivors transitioning to adult care; a $545,000 SAMHSA Center for Substance Abuse Treatment grant (CFDA 93.490) to deliver evidence-based substance use disorder and co-occurring mental health treatment for youth and young adults in Los Angeles County schools and emergency departments; and a $39,972 Department of Veterans Affairs contract for RNA sequencing services supporting a research study. The hospital also executes clinical trials infrastructure work as a node site in the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN), supporting multi-center randomized trials in emergency medicine and critical care.

Customer concentration is heavily weighted toward the National Institutes of Health and its constituent institutes. The National Cancer Institute leads by award count (107 awards) and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases dominates by potential value ($21.5 million combined). The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (49 awards), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (61 awards), the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (31 awards), and the National Institute of Mental Health account for significant volume. Across the top five federal customer categories, awards cover 48% of recent activity, reflecting the hospital's broad engagement across NIH institutes and federal health agencies. The Department of Defense, Defense Health Agency, and the Department of Veterans Affairs also place military medical research and development funding. No federal contract vehicles (GWACs, BPAs, IDIQs) anchor the footprint; work is awarded as direct grants or task orders under agency-specific vehicles.

The hospital operates across a 50/50 prime-to-sub split in recent activity. As a prime grant recipient, Children's Hospital Los Angeles executes project grants, cooperative agreements, and research training awards directly from federal agencies. As a sub-recipient, it participates in multi-institutional consortia led by universities and other research hospitals—including The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Seattle Children's Hospital, Stanford University, UCLA, and the University of Southern California—contributing site-specific clinical populations, research expertise in pediatric neuro-oncology, metabolic disorders, and immunology, and operational infrastructure for patient recruitment, data collection, and specimen handling. Named sub-award teaming partners include The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia on neuroblastoma therapy resistance studies and core laboratory support; Seattle Children's Hospital on speech-language pathology intervention research and PECARN emergency medicine trials; Stanford University on EMS-based clinical protocols; Vanderbilt University Medical Center on human milk oligosaccharide biomarker research; and Drexel University on medical marijuana and emerging adult health policy research. The hospital also subcontracts to industry partners on clinical data integration and precision medicine initiatives—including work to Astrix Technology LLC and Becton, Dickinson and Company on MDNet myeloMATCH clinical assays and support.

Activity has declined from a peak of 129 awards in 2023 to 46 awards in 2026 year-to-date, reflecting both the typical lag in grant funding cycles and the timing of recompetes. Forty-eight awards (prime and sub combined) face ultimate completion in the next twenty-four months, creating recompete and pipeline risk. Service Contract Inventory reporting covers only four records spanning fiscal years 2022–2025; three records show zero invoiced federal service revenue and one sub record carries 1.2 FTEs, indicating that SCI-reportable service contracts do not represent a material share of the hospital's federal footprint. The overwhelming majority of federal funding flows through grants and cooperative agreements rather than service contracts subject to SCI reporting.

Children's Hospital Los Angeles competes predominately under full-and-open solicitations from NIH institutes and federal health agencies; no set-aside categories or small business designations apply. The hospital's credentials as a leading pediatric academic medical center—anchored by the Saban Research Institute and affiliated with the University of Southern California—position it to compete for large, multi-year research grants and to serve as the coordinating center or clinical site node in multi-institutional consortia addressing rare pediatric diseases, cancer biology, immunotherapy, neurodevelopmental disorders, and health outcomes research in underrepresented pediatric populations.