The Univeristy Of Texas M.d. Anderson Cancer Center

The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, a state-controlled National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center and child entity of the University of Texas System, operates as a prime recipient on federal research grants and a prime contractor on federal service contracts across nearly 2,900 awards spanning 87 federal agencies. MD Anderson delivers cancer research, clinical trial infrastructure, preclinical drug development, non-human primate acquisition and management, and biostatistical and translational oncology services to the federal government, with no set-aside designations across its portfolio.

The National Cancer Institute dominates MD Anderson's federal engagement: 1,019 awards representing 69 percent of total award count and 81 percent of combined potential value ($581.5 million), with the remaining 31 percent spread across the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute ($35.6 million across 81 awards), the National Institutes of Health Office of the Director ($25.2 million across 50 awards), the Defense Health Agency (194 awards valued at $7 thousand in combined potential), and other NIH divisions and agencies including the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the National Institute on Aging, and the Food and Drug Administration. Recent representative work includes a $7.639 million cost-plus-no-fee definitive contract (awarded September 2026) for operation and maintenance of the Chimpanzee Care Center in Bastrop, Texas through February 2032; a $752,304 firm fixed-price definitive contract (awarded September 2026) with the Food and Drug Administration for evaluating Bayesian effective sample size and decision criteria for pediatric and rare disease trials under solicitation BAA FY26C1FP7; and delivery orders under the PREVENT Cancer Preclinical Drug Development Program IDIQ including a $1.324 million cost-sharing delivery order from the National Cancer Institute (awarded September 2025) for low-dose erlotinib and mesalamine prevention studies. MD Anderson's grant work spans the Cancer Research Manpower program (CFDA 93.398), Military Medical Research and Development (CFDA 12.420), Cancer Treatment Research (CFDA 93.395), Cancer Cause and Prevention Research (CFDA 93.393), and multiple other NIH programs funding translational oncology, immunotherapy, biomarker discovery, and precision medicine research.

Core capability portfolio centers on three interdependent domains. First, translational and preclinical oncology research: investigator-initiated R01 grants, cooperative agreements, and BAA-funded awards supporting cancer biology, immunotherapy mechanisms (including CAR-NK and CAR-T cell engineering), tumor microenvironment characterization, biomarker development, and drug development from target discovery through clinical translation across solid tumors and hematologic malignancies. Second, non-human primate acquisition and management: 47 awards in that category across federal customers, including baboon and chimpanzee care and provision for infectious disease, aging, and cancer research. Third, clinical research infrastructure and biostatistics: statistical methodology development, clinical trial design and execution, and research training programs supporting cancer prevention, detection, and treatment research. Recent grants exemplify depth: a $706.777 million five-year Cancer Cause and Prevention Research award (issued August 2026) for a multi-ancestry genome-wide association study of mammographic density and breast cancer risk in over 120,000 multiethnic women; a $3.466 million Defense Health Agency award (issued September 2026) for a Technology Therapeutic Development Award in oncology; and a $1.847 million National Cancer Institute award (issued September 2025) for advancing next-generation CAR-NK therapies targeting CD5-positive T-cell malignancies to the clinic.

MD Anderson holds position on the PREVENT Cancer Preclinical Drug Development Program IDIQ (ceiling $149.995 million, multiple-award, National Cancer Institute, running through January 2029), which has issued 13 task orders to date. The center also sits on the PREVENT Cancer Program IDIQ and has received orders under the Cancer Prevention Agent Development Program and the Non-Human Primates 2016–2021 vehicle.

Activity has grown consistently: 178 awards in 2023, 252 in 2024, 274 in 2025, and 169 in 2026 year to date. In the next 24 months, 287 awards carrying combined potential value of $42.4 million face ultimate completion, creating recompete opportunity and risk for continued engagement. SCI-reported invoiced revenue on federal service contracts (a subset covering only contracts above $150,000 threshold and excluding goods, products, and classified work) was $11.1 million in FY2022, $11.1 million in FY2023, $12.4 million in FY2024, and $13.5 million in FY2025; these figures represent a narrow slice of MD Anderson's total federal activity and do not capture grant revenue, which dominates the portfolio. The SCI dataset shows roughly 3.0 FTEs in FY2022, zero in FY2023, 3.7 FTEs in FY2024, and 11.4 FTEs in FY2025 across SCI-reportable prime contracts. Across prime contracts captured in SCI, MD Anderson uses no subcontractors for its core federal services work, instead building its own delivery teams. As a prime recipient on grant awards, MD Anderson frequently subcontracts to academic institutions (including Yale, Stanford, Duke, Rice, Baylor, and others) for complementary research support, statistical services, and disease-specific expertise.

MD Anderson operates as a university-affiliated research center with characteristic profile: 81 percent prime awards (2,396 of 2,958) and 19 percent sub-awards (562), reflecting its status as a leading independent research institution and the primary investigator site for most federal research it undertakes. The center's federal work integrates clinical care delivery, academic training programs, and investigator-initiated research across all NIH institutes and centers, positioning it as a mission-critical research partner for federal cancer programs and a significant contributor to the broader NIH-funded biomedical research ecosystem.