Life Sciences News

It seems that there may be a new Valley of Death on the horizon of COVID therapeutic development. Earlier this month (9 JUL) NIAID posted a Funding Opportunities Announcement soliciting proposals related to COVID therapeutic development through their Antiviral Drug Discovery (AViDD) Centers for Pathogens of Pandemic Concern program (RFA-AI-21-050: Antiviral Drug Discovery (AViDD) Centers

Earlier this month the Army Contracting Command published an amendment to solicitation W911QY-20-S-C001 related to Area of Interest 5, oral antiviral therapeutics. This is a procurement solicitation and specifically the USG is looking for direct-acting antivirals for COVID-19 high-risk patients. Successful offerors will be able to deliver 500,000 treatment courses of the anti-viral within eight

For the past 18 months companies have been confused and frustrated by the shifting USG policies regarding the development of therapeutics as part of the COVID-19 response. BARDA was back and forth as parts of the BAA were suspended, unsuspended, and resuspended. The American rescue Plan legislation was passed about six months ago and although

The Joint Army Contracting Command and the Joint COVID Response Division (ACC-JCRD) recently published a solicitation seeking Commercial Solutions to decrease US reliance on fragile global supply chains and increase preparedness for future pandemics. The solicitation seeks to establish, expand, and accelerate the availability of domestically-produced supplies in several different areas, some of which may

Executive Summary BARDA’s suspension of funding for COVID-19 therapeutics risks repeating mistakes of past pandemics as it may cause industry to pull out of the development space, experts say. Industry sources are concerned the Biden administration is focusing on funding NIH at the expense of BARDA. The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority quietly suspended

The DPA Title III program just received an additional $10B in the recovery legislation that was recently passed. The DPA program is administered by the US Air Force and more information can be found here beta.SAM.gov. The solicitation is open until JUL 2024 to offerors that meet the requirements of the Defense Production Act of

Recently we became aware of two new opportunities for federal funding through HHS and DoD. We believe these may present exciting new avenues for companies that work in these areas. First, BARDA just posted two new RFIs with a response deadline of April 23, 2021. Links to these are here: beta.SAM.gov | Search – Expansion

Recently, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) published a call for proposals that is open from 28 JAN 2021 to 28 MAY 2021 and can be found here [CEPICfPCallText.pdf]. Trials that expand access in low and middle income countries is strongly encouraged. The objective is to expand access to vaccines that are already in

Recently BARDA published information about the COVID programs the USG is supporting through collaboration between HHS and DoD. Some of that information is summarized in the  table below. In the rush to respond to the COVID pandemic the portfolio became unbalanced, especially regarding therapeutics. With the new administration there is interest and funding available to

The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) recently published a Presolicitation Notice for a project titled ‘BARDA Chemical Animal Model Development” [beta.SAM.gov | Search]. The Notice announces BARDA’s intention to publish an RFP for the same project on or around February 14, 2021. The RFP seeks proposals related to testing services, not product development.