Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Vanderbilt University Medical Center, operating as Vumc, is a major nonprofit academic medical center that receives federal funding as a prime recipient for specialized transplant services, research support, and clinical trials—with a distinct revenue model emphasizing research grants and federal healthcare service delivery rather than traditional federal contracting. Vumc competes predominantly in full-and-open procurements with no set-aside designations across its federal footprint, concentrating its efforts in life sciences research, organ transplantation, and clinical investigation for the Department of Health and Human Services (primarily the National Institutes of Health), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VISN 9), and the Defense Health Agency.

Vumc's concrete federal capabilities center on specialized organ transplantation (liver, kidney, heart, and liver-kidney combined), biomedical research (infectious disease, oncology, cardiovascular, neurology, and pediatric health), clinical trial coordination and enrollment, reference laboratory testing and diagnostic services, and veterinary and animal care support for federal research programs. Recent contract work includes a $94.3 million single-award IDIQ through June 2036 for liver and liver-kidney transplant services to Veterans Integrated Service Network 9, with a base-period delivery order valued at $4.86 million for liver and live donor liver transplant services awarded July 1, 2026. Vumc also delivers heart transplant services (ceiling $9.15 million through September 2032), kidney transplant services (a $4.72 million delivery order for FY26), and STAT reference testing for transplant patients ($1.42 million through September 2026), all under VA VISN 9 IDIQs. The medical center holds additional single-award IDCs with VISN 9 for veterinary support (ceiling $650 thousand through March 2030), core research support ($250 thousand through April 2027), and autopsy assistant services, reflecting its position as an integrated clinical and research partner to the VA healthcare system. Recent grant awards from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute include a $1.77 million project grant on TBX4-driven pulmonary hypertension mechanisms (June 2026–March 2030), and a $1.73 million award on therapeutic development of a ryanodine receptor inhibitor for atrial fibrillation (June 2026–February 2028). The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases funded a $668.5 thousand award on multi-modal biomarkers in pediatric eosinophilic esophagitis (June 2026–February 2031) and a $874.7 thousand award investigating transcriptional mechanisms of fibrosis in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (June 2026–February 2030).

Customer concentration is heavily weighted toward the National Institutes of Health divisions. The top five federal customers account for 48% of recent awards by count: the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (388 awards, $500.5 million combined potential value), the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (326 awards), the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (309 awards, $1 billion combined potential value), the National Cancer Institute (308 awards), and VISN 9 (208 awards, $543.9 million). By dollar volume, the top five account for 81% of combined potential value, with NIAID anchoring the largest single customer share at $1 billion. Vumc maintains extensive concurrent engagement across multiple NIH Institutes and Centers, the Defense Health Agency, the National Science Foundation, and other civilian and military health research sponsors, indicating a diversified but research-intensive customer base. Activity has fluctuated significantly: 235 awards in 2022, climbing to 522 in 2024, then declining to 410 in 2025 and 163 through October 2026, suggesting recent slowing in new award generation or a data collection lag.

Vumc operates as a prime recipient on approximately 66% of recent awards (2,097 prime awards) and as a sub-recipient on 34% (1,088 sub-awards), indicating a hybrid delivery model in which it anchors its own research and clinical programs while serving as a research partner and clinical trial site on larger grants led by other academic medical centers and research institutions. SCI-reportable federal service contract invoicing totaled $88.5 million across FY2022–FY2024 (prime records), with $56.8 million in FY2022 across roughly 4,809 FTEs and $31.7 million in FY2024 across 66 FTEs, showing a significant decline in both dollars and workforce on reportable service contracts. Government-paid hourly rates on SCI prime contracts span a wide range—median $129.62/hr, with senior labor pricing reaching $258.85/hr at the 90th percentile—reflecting a mixed portfolio of clinical, administrative, research, and specialized medical staff. Across SCI-reportable prime contracts, subcontractors averaged 3% of total contractor hours, with 78 named subcontractors reported, suggesting Vumc builds much of its own delivery capacity internally while selectively engaging specialized subs for targeted functions. On federal research grants, Vumc operates both as a prime recipient (conducting primary research and clinical investigations) and as a named sub-recipient under leading-edge research consortia, with notable sub-recipient roles on studies prime-awarded to Johns Hopkins, University of Pennsylvania, Mayo Clinic, Northwestern, and other major research universities, where Vumc typically contributes clinical subject recruitment, biospecimen collection, histological analysis, data management, or specialized clinical expertise.

Vumc's federal grant footprint is substantial and spans the full research spectrum of the National Institutes of Health and allied federal health agencies. Representative recent awards include major NHLBI-funded investigations on cardiovascular disease mechanisms, including $2.59 million on superoxide influx via LRRC8 anion channels in sepsis (May 2026–February 2028), $1.17 million on endothelial cyclophilin D acetylation and hypertension (May 2026–February 2030), and $883 thousand on pathophysiological mechanisms of cirrhotic cardiomyopathy (September 2025–June 2030). The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has funded multiple investigations on infectious disease, including $1.17 million on pathogen and host predictors of tuberculosis transmission (September 2025–August 2030) and $481 thousand on inhibitors of the reverse transsulfuration pathway for Helicobacter pylori (April 2026–March 2028). The National Cancer Institute awarded $4.17 million for genetics and drug-repurposing research in colorectal adenoma (September 2025–August 2029) and $603.7 thousand for improved surgical navigation in urothelial carcinoma (June 2026–May 2031). The National Institute on Aging has funded aging-focused research including $2.2 million on endothelial aging and dementia mechanisms (January 2026–December 2030) and $659 thousand on retinal imaging for early Alzheimer's detection (March 2026–February 2031). Vumc also receives training grants, including a $430.6 thousand T32 mentored training program in pediatric cardiorespiratory research (September 2025–August 2030) and a $1.39 million cooperative agreement as coordinating center for the MAGEN Consortium on genomic variant interpretation (February 2026–January 2028). The Defense Health Agency has funded substantial research on kidney cancer biology, spine surgery rehabilitation outcomes, and military medical innovation. Federal grant work is performed at Vumc's Nashville, Tennessee headquarters and subordinate research facilities, with administrative oversight and sponsored research coordination handled through Vanderbilt University's central administration.

Teaming relationships reflect Vumc's position within the broader academic medical research enterprise. As a sub-recipient, Vumc frequently partners with Johns Hopkins University, University of Pennsylvania, Mayo Clinic, Northwestern University, Yale University, Duke University, and other major research institutions on NIH-funded investigations requiring multi-site clinical enrollment, biospecimen collection, advanced imaging, pathological assessment, or specialized analytical expertise. When operating as prime on clinical research networks, Vumc names collaborating institutions as sub-awardees: for example, the lung transplant vaccination study (April 2026–March 2031) involves coordinated site work across multiple transplant centers, and the kidney cancer initiative (September 2025–August 2030) names University of Pennsylvania, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Yale University, and Cleveland Clinic Foundation as sub-awardees. Vumc's subcontract footprint on federal service contracts is limited (3% average sub-hours share), indicating that the medical center predominantly delivers clinical and research services through its own workforce rather than through deep subcontracting relationships. However, Vumc serves as a clinical trial site and research partner for numerous prime contractors and research institutions, placing it in a feeder role on many large NIH and DoD initiatives rather than as the coordinating lead.

A single-award IDIQ for liver/liver-kidney and live donor liver transplant services anchors Vumc's contract vehicle footprint. This VA vehicle (awarded July 1, 2026, through June 30, 2036, ceiling $94.35 million) has supported multiple delivery orders for FY26 and subsequent years, including the base-period liver/liver-kidney transplant order ($4.86 million, July 1, 2026–June 30, 2027), ongoing kidney transplant services, reference laboratory testing, and ancillary services. VISN 9 has issued separate IDCs for veterinary support, core research support, and autopsy services, each sized under $1 million in ceiling value but demonstrating Vumc's established role as a specialized-services provider to the VA healthcare system in the Southeast region. Beyond VA vehicles, Vumc participates in NIH grant consortia and cooperative agreements, though these do not appear as traditional "contract vehicles" in the IDIQ sense—rather, they represent coordinating-center roles, clinical trial network participation, and research partnership structures managed through federal grant mechanisms. The medical center's parent organization, The Vanderbilt University, holds broader federal research infrastructure support and administrative contracts, but Vumc's own documented vehicle footprint emphasizes VA clinical service IDIQs and NIH research grants.

Recompete exposure in the next twenty-four months includes 380 awards with ultimate completion dates in that window, carrying a combined potential value of $17.2 million. This represents a modest concentration of recompete activity relative to the overall $2.52 billion potential-value portfolio, suggesting that Vumc's federal commitments are staggered across a long time horizon characteristic of multi-year research grants and extended clinical service agreements. The largest single recompete risks are the VA IDIQ-issued delivery orders for transplant services expiring in FY2027 and FY2028, which collectively represent tens of millions in dollars and anchor Vumc's clinical revenue from federal sources.

Vumc is a child entity of The Vanderbilt University, a tax-exempt private research university. The medical center operates within the broader Vanderbilt institutional framework, leveraging university research infrastructure, sponsored programs administration, and educational partnerships while maintaining its own clinical operations and patient care mission. This corporate structure enables Vumc to access federal research funding channels available to academic medical centers while operating the largest hospital system in Middle Tennessee serving a multi-state veteran and civilian patient population.