By Chelsea Schiller, director, ARPA-H Investor Catalyst Hub
This article originally appeared on the ARPA-H Investor Catalyst Hub blog.
Just over a year ago, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) launched the Investor Catalyst (IC) Hub as part of ARPANET-H—a nationwide health innovation network. The IC Hub is on a mission to support ARPA-H program development.
We’ve been busy! Although I’m excited to jump into our second year, I wanted to reflect on our first year’s highlights and give credit to those who have contributed to our success.
Reflecting on Year One
Our first year was all about growth.
We built a diverse network from coast to coast with many of the brightest minds and leaders in health innovation. From 10 inaugural members to nearly 600 members today, our ever growing network spans the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. It represents nearly two dozen sectors and service areas. Of our members, almost 250 are designated small businesses, more than 150 have been operating for fewer than five years, more than 100 are women-owned, and more than 75 are minority-owned. This is important to us as we work to serve as the front door to the agency for our broader network, but most importantly for underrepresented organizations, companies, and institutions that haven’t previously received federal funding.
Like the IC Hub, ARPA-H is still a young agency. In only two and a half years, ARPA-H has launched 19 programs and has allocated $1.5 billion for transformative health solutions. Our growth is intertwined, and as ARPA-H continues to build its portfolio of projects and investments, the IC Hub will follow.
As I mentioned in my interview with the Boston Business Journal in the spring, the IC Hub is best positioned to support ARPA-H program development by leveraging its network—and our hub’s network is now bigger, more diverse, and more capable of providing the expertise, solutions, and support than ever before.
We are excited to celebrate the 30 IC Hub members who have already received a total of more than $936 million in funding from ARPA-H. Last month, Cellino was awarded $25 million from ARPA-H to support the NExt-generation Biomanufacturing ULtra-scalable Approach (NEBULA) project.