• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

TechNews

Technology breaking news

  • Home
  • Startups
  • Science
  • Cybersecurity
  • Review

As plan for new U.S. health agency to speed treatments takes shape, doubts remain

May 29, 2021 by www.sciencemag.org Leave a Comment

By Jocelyn Kaiser May. 29, 2021 , 11:00 AM

Those closely following President Joe Biden's plan to create a huge agency to fund cutting-edge, transformative health projects welcomed the release this week of new details about the ambitious proposal. But for some research advocates, worries remain that the new agency won't be significantly different from the rest of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where it would be housed.

The proposed Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) "will need to be audacious, nimble, and have unique authorities," says Ellen Sigal, chair and founder of Friends of Cancer Research. "It's an incredible opportunity, but at the moment there are many unknowns that will need to be discussed and debated in the near future."

First proposed by Biden early this year, ARPA-H would be modeled after the similarly named Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which has a reputation for accelerating the development of breakthrough technologies for the military. DARPA's funding approach depends less on traditional peer review of ideas, and more on hard-charging program managers empowered to award contracts that can be abruptly cancelled if researchers don't meet desired milestones. DARPA has been lauded for, among other things, helping develop the Internet and radar-evading stealth technologies. Biden and others believe a similar model of placing informed bets on high-risk but potentially high-payoff ideas could also produce biomedical advances.

Some proponents of ARPA-H have argued it should be a stand-alone agency within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) because it would be so different from NIH, which funds basic research with long-running grants evaluated by peer reviewers. Last month, however, Biden released a budget outline that proposed placing ARPA-H – which he wants to launch with a budget of $6.5 billion – squarely within the NIH . That plan raised doubts that, if Congress approved ARPA-H, it would be able operate as originally envisioned.

Yesterday, Biden's full budget request to Congress offered a bit more insight into the administration's vision for ARPA-H. The agency "will have a distinctive culture and organizational structure," according to budget documents , "and will complement NIH's existing research portfolio, providing an agile and flexible arm to advance biomedical science quickly and robustly." The budget also describes an external advisory board that will help ARPA-H coordinate with other agencies and generate ideas.

Those things sound like DARPA, says Michael Stebbins, a consultant and former White House science office official. But he's troubled by a statement that ARPA-H will use "traditional and nontraditional mechanisms." "That sounds like grants and not milestone-driven contracts," Stebbins says.

NIH director Francis Collins added more details earlier this week at hearings in the Senate and House of Representatives on NIH's 2022 budget. Lawmakers were generally supportive of ARPA-H but had questions, including about who would run the agency. Collins told a Senate panel that he expects it to be led by "a visionary person" appointed for a 5-year term that could be renewed only once. Like at DARPA, projects would be pitched to the director by a hundred program managers, who would then find partners in industry and academia to pursue them.

Collins said NIH has shown it is capable of adopting "a DARPA-like attitude" by quickly disbursing billions of dollars to develop diagnostics, treatments, and vaccines to battle the COVID-19 pandemic. As an example, he pointed to the Operation Warp Speed effort that produced two cutting-edge mRNA vaccines for COVID-19.

As for concerns that $6.5 billion would be too much for the agency to handle in its first year, Collins said the spending would be spread over 3 years. And there's no need to worry that ARPAH-H would mean smaller funding increases for NIH's 27 institutes and centers, he said. "It is going to be a synergistic relationship," Collins told the Senate panel.

To some onlookers, however, giving NIH's institutes and other agencies a role in shaping ARPA-H's activities sounds less like a dramatic break from traditional approaches, and more like a larger version of the Common Fund, a central NIH pot of money that critics complain has failed to fund enough out-of-the-box research.

Another concern is that instead of allowing ARPA-H to decide which diseases it will target, Collins will yield to demands from patient advocacy groups that the agency include funding for their priorities. Collins seemed to suggest at the House hearing last week that ARPA-H won't ignore any disease. "The intention is for this model to be applied to all of the diseases that are ready for this scientifically," he said.

Stebbins, for one, hasn't been reassured by such comments. "I think we need a lot more information here before we should be comfortable with [ARPA-H] being under the NIH," he says.

Yet another unknown is what happens if ARPA-H is created as a standalone NIH institute, as it appears to be in the president's budget. That would bring the total number of NIH institutes and centers to 28, one more than allowed under current law.

One option may be to combine ARPA-H with NIH's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), which has a similar mission of funding translational science that moves basic discoveries towards treatments. Collins told the House panel that NIH needs to consult with "stakeholders" about whether some of NCATS' components could be folded into ARPA-H.

How Congress will handle the many questions about ARPA-H could become clearer in early June, when a House committee that oversees NIH policies intends to release a draft bill to create the agency.

  • Colorado’s COVID cases keep rising. Now Durango’s public health agency is sounding the alarm.
  • Frank Lampard's Everton plans start taking shape as he targets former Chelsea backroom staff
  • Man Utd eye surprise Richarlison move as Erik ten Hag's transfer plans take shape
  • Twitter Employees Search for Answers as Musk Deal Takes Shape
  • Why taking an aspirin at bedtime (not first thing in the morning) can halve your risk of a stroke
  • Millions of people suffer from long COVID. Why is there still no treatment?
  • The Promising Treatment for Long COVID We’re Not Even Trying
  • In new book, Birx describes how data failures, bureaucracy and politics hindered Covid-19 response
  • Covid-19 cases that return after antiviral treatment puzzle doctors
  • Paul Merson health: Footballer owes ex partner 'everything' after 'worrying' skin cancer
  • Ruth Langsford health: Star on how menopause has 'changed' her - 'my boobs are bigger'
  • Forgotten Childhood Memories Still Shape Your Life
  • Javid urged to act as child mental health cases rocket
  • New tools to detect cancer recurrence: What cancer patients need to know
  • Richard Hammond's knee was 'smashed' after high-speed crash nearly 'incinerated him'
  • Richard Dreyfuss health: 'I’m a manic depressive' - actor on bipolar he was 'born with'
  • Paul Arthur health: Oasis' Bonehead 'gutted' as he starts cancer treatment - symptoms
  • What’s the best remedy for a flaky, itchy scalp? DR MARTIN SCURR answers your health questions
  • Michael Douglas health: 'Walnut-sized tumour' on tongue was first sign of star's cancer
  • Jane Fonda health: 'I hurt a lot' - star, 84, on her 'genetic' osteoporosis
As plan for new U.S. health agency to speed treatments takes shape, doubts remain have 1205 words, post on www.sciencemag.org at May 29, 2021. This is cached page on TechNews. If you want remove this page, please contact us.

Filed Under: Health traffic-busting $100b bay area tax plan taking shape, take 3 talent agency new york, ny, health plan of new york, health insurance plan of new york, easy choice health plan of new york, hip health plan of new york medicaid, hip health plan of new york provider phone number

Primary Sidebar

RSS Recent Stories

  • 10 Great iPhone Features You Should Be Using
  • Point-and-shoot compact cameras aren’t dead, they’ve just changed
  • Everything you need to know about the monkeypox health emergency
  • biden: Future is ‘Made in America’, says Joe Biden after signing $280 billion Chips & Science Act
  • What is a fecal transplant?
  • binance: Binance co-operates Nischal Shetty-run WazirX, says Zanmai Labs
  • mswipe: Fintech platform Mswipe gets RBI nod for Payment Aggregator license
  • wazirx kyc law: WazirX says it is compliant with KYC law
  • Breitbart Business Digest: How Much Does Unemployment Need To Rise to Tame Inflation?
  • Arizona Police Chief Sounds Alarm Over Fentanyl ‘Pandemic’

Sponsored Links

  • Major crash led to suspension of its Tesla Model 3 by taxi company
  • After Tesla, SpaceX workers come forward to speak on sexual harassment
  • Wi-Fi range extender to strengthen network coverage and internet speeds
  • apple: How to capture screenshot on Apple iPhone just by tapping back panel
  • EU Parliament backs tough new rules to rein in US tech giants
  • Carville: ‘Strap in People’ — January 6 Probe Will Expose Trump Was Behind a ‘Massive Criminal Act’
  • Warren: SCOTUS ‘Has Lost the Respect of the American People’ — We Need More Justices
  • Summers: Combatting Inflation Will ‘Require Substantially More’ Than What Fed Is Doing
  • Bratton: Lax District Attorneys, ‘Most of Them Funded by George Soros’ ‘Are Destroying the Criminal Justice System’
  • WATCH: Sheriff’s Deputies in Maryland Rescue Woman from Frigid Waters
Copyright © 2022 TechNews. Power by Wordpress.
Home - About Us - Contact Us - Disclaimers - DMCA - Privacy Policy - Submit your story