Placing Big Bets to Facilitate Major Health Breakthroughs
Megan Frisk, PhD, director for International Affairs at Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), recently joined us for an alliance discussion on the newly established agency and its unique structure. Inspired by the structure of the Defense Advancement Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which has played an instrumental role in breakthrough technologies like the Internet, ARPA-H shares a similar goal of facilitating major health research breakthroughs. This goal is achieved through a “big bets” model where high-impact research projects are selected and funded for time-limited sprints. Here is a short Q&A based off of Dr. Frisk’s presentation:
Q: What is the ARPA-H model?
A: We take on those really challenging health problems in pursuit of those high-impact solutions. We’re modeled off of the business model pioneered by DARPA. If you think of [a] valley in between basic biomedical research, and on other end of this valley being industry, where you have commercial products and services that have a viable pathway to market, we really sit in that middle space that I like to call the ‘Valley of Opportunity.’ We’re bridging basic biomedical research and industry development.”
Q: Is all the collaboration just in the U.S.?
A: “An emerging superpower of the agency is our ability to fund internationally and to really have quite a bit of flexibility in how we connect with the research community globally – patients, researchers, international organizations, other funders, technologists, entrepreneurs.
Q: What are the mission areas of the agency:
A: “We are disease agnostic. We don’t have a dedicated line in cancer, immunology, or allergy, or others. Instead, we focus on mission areas. We have four mission areas. One is on the future of health science. That is the really cool novel technology and technology platforms. The next area is resilient systems—thinking of what’s not working in our [healthcare] system. This could be data sharing, this could be cybersecurity, this could be issues with reimbursement or care models. But also: how are those cool new technologies being integrated into our system? The third area is scalable solutions—how are we going to scale these new platforms, approaches, [and] technologies up and out? This is where you start thinking about things like biomanufacturing, like supply chains. And then the last [mission area] is on proactive health – our preventative medicine office. This is keeping people from becoming patients.”