Stacy Chin breaks down ARPA-H, a new federal agency that funds high-risk biotech moonshots without traditional peer review. Awards range from $25 million to $50 million, and Scout has already helped clients land over $25 million. It's non-dilutive capital if your startup can pitch something ambitious but still fundable.
People ask me, how much do I propose? This is where it gets fun. So let's talk about ARPA-H. ARPA-H is a brand new federal agency that's only a couple of years old. And so I like to describe it as if this is the cousin of the NIH program and also the DARPA program. So there's a DARPA framework where you have program officers figuring out, you know, what technologies and startups are out there to support their current mission and criteria. So there's actually no study sections for these applications. And it really comes down to your relationship with the program officer, which is really interesting and different. So when I advise a client to go for an ARPA-H application, I'm looking for something that's a moonshot, something that's really out of this world. So I think of something that is kind of high risk and innovative, but it's feasible and doable as something for an SBIR program. I wanna take that, put some Star Trek magic to that, and then that's gonna be my moonshot ARPA-H application. People ask me, how much do I propose? This is where it gets fun. We can get anywhere up to even $25 or $50 million of funding and propose that amount. Scout, our clients have raised over $25 million of these types of applications, so we can definitely help you figure out what the best strategy is for you guys. So this is another really attractive way to get non-diluted funding.
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