The Medical College Of Wisconsin, Inc.

The Medical College of Wisconsin, Inc., a private nonprofit medical school and research institution headquartered in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, acts primarily as a federal grant recipient and prime contractor (81% of recent awards) delivering clinical services, medical research, and academic training to the federal government across 108 customer agencies. MCW competes in full-and-open federal procurements without set-aside designations, reflecting its status as a large, established academic medical center. The institution's federal footprint spans basic biomedical research, clinical services at Veterans Affairs medical centers, emergency medicine research networks, and specialized medical training.

MCW's customer base reflects its dual mission as a research institution and clinical provider. The National Institutes of Health dominates by award count, with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (246 awards) and National Cancer Institute (149 awards) as leading customer components. By dollar value, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration anchors the portfolio at $232.7 million combined potential value, primarily through the Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network (CIREN) program—a vehicle MCW holds as a single-award indefinite-delivery contract valued at $1,548,860 through August 2027. The Veterans Health Administration's Veterans Integrated Service Network 12 places 214 awards worth $107.2 million, concentrated in clinical services including perfusion, radiology, dermatopathology, and cardiothoracic physician assistant support at the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center in Milwaukee. Recent contract examples include a $1,783,334 definitive contract (April 2026, through March 2031) for perfusion services at Milwaukee VAMC and a $4.4 million radiology services contract (May 2025, through April 2030, with $295 thousand invoiced in FY2025 across 0.5 FTEs). MCW's Department of the Navy activity includes a $137,106 electroencephalography and diffusion MRI data collection purchase order (September 2024, through March 2027) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base for hypoxia research.

MCW's grant portfolio is dominated by NIH awards across diverse disease domains. Recent major recipients include $2,753,400 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (September 2026, through June 2031) for a multi-project P01 grant investigating angiotensin-mediated cardiometabolic control; $1,437,595 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (June 2026, through February 2031) validating pathogenicity of 23 mitochondrial DNA variants through cell and animal models; and $812,747 from NHLBI (July 2026, through March 2030) on epidemiological studies of tissue-type plasminogen activator's role in reducing lipoprotein(a) levels. National Institute on Drug Abuse awards support addiction research, including $468,000 (September 2026, through July 2031) for identifying glial gene signatures in opioid seeking and $248,959 (September 2025, through August 2028) for research training on individualized factors in substance misuse. MCW also received a $1,985,067 Defense Health Agency project grant (September 2025, through September 2029) for POINT-BLAST, a point-of-care biomarker detection program for repetitive subconcussive blast exposure in military service members. Grant awards span training programs (R25 institutional training grants in otolaryngology and surgeon-scientist development), resource programs (R24 for the Hybrid Rat Discovery Panel and Cre-Driver Rat models), and clinical trials (obstetric, trauma, oncology, and immunology networks).

Activity has fluctuated in recent years—141 awards in 2023, 205 in 2024, 173 in 2025, and 126 in 2026. Federal obligation ($3.07 billion) exceeds combined potential value ($563.8 million), reflecting the institution's long-standing federal engagement and multi-year grant cycles. SCI-reported invoicing on prime service contracts reached $33.1 million cumulatively across FY2022–FY2025, with FY2025 at $9.2 million across 45.1 FTEs—indicating a stable core federal services workforce. Hourly rates on SCI-reportable work span from $38/hr (10th percentile) to $281/hr (90th percentile), with a median of $95.22/hr, reflecting mixed staffing from clinical and research personnel. The subcontractor share averaged 5% of contractor hours across SCI-reportable primes, with four named subs, indicating MCW predominantly builds its own delivery teams rather than relying on subcontracts for major federal work. Within the next twenty-four months, 171 awards (combined potential value $41.3 million) reach ultimate completion, representing significant recompete activity. MCW maintains a single-award NHTSA CIREN vehicle through August 2027 and a Navy Basic Ordering Agreement (May 2026, through April 2036) for medical clinical services, establishing recurring clinical work vehicles alongside its dominant NIH research portfolio.