On the heels of the iC³ Summit, BioNTX CEO Gina Ford was in the room with the nation’s top health leaders for the unveiling of a new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) initiative to streamline how clinical trials are designed and conducted in the United States.

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was joined by Acting Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Kyle Diamantes, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Mehmet Oz, MD and top ARPA-H leaders, along with invited guests, for the September 30 announcement at the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin.

ARPA-H Director Alicia Jackson, Ph.D., expressed gratitude for the partnership with Texas.

“Texas is incredibly exciting in order to partner because it represents, essentially, the United States in one state because they have everything that's needed to actually move the ball forward,” said Dr. Jackson. “They have incredible research. They have incredible innovation. They like to be at the frontier and build new things, which is very exciting for us. They have incredible medical research institutions, and the fact that they've raised their hand and said, ‘We're going to be your first partner,’ is just really incredible. … it is a pleasure to launch it here, to be at the Vanguard, at the forefront.”

Ford noted this announcement comes almost exactly three years after ARPA-H selected Texas to host its Customer Experience Hub at Pegasus Park in Dallas, through a consortium among Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin that is focused on making clinical trials and resulting innovations more accessible to patients. The Texas site anchors the ARPANET-H nationwide health innovation network alongside two sister hubs: the Investor Catalyst Hub in Cambridge, MA and the Stakeholder and Operations Hub in Washington, D.C.

“Given everything our state is working on collaboratively to support the bioscience sector and the successful pull-through of life-changing innovation to help patients, it is thrilling to see Texas continue to be at the forefront of this transformational project,” said Ford.

ARPA-H will launch its new Simulation-augmented, Real-time Platform Adaptive Seamless Trials (SURPASS) program this fall, together with three complementary projects, to transform the U.S. clinical trial ecosystem using advanced computational models, real-time analysis, shared infrastructure, and automation. The mission is to evaluate drugs and biologics more efficiently and remove barriers that slow clinical development.