Coyote Fireside Chat featuring ARPA-H Sprint for Women's Health

The Coyote Fireside Chats resumed last week with Jenica Patterson, the lead for the Sprint for Women’s Health Initiative and Director of the Project Accelerator Transition Innovation Office at ARPA-H.

ARPA-H, a branch of NIH, is devoted to accelerating better health outcomes and catalyzing groundbreaking innovations by solving health problems that cannot be addressed by commercial activities and traditional research methods. With $1.5 billion funding in FY24, ARPA-H streamlines the research and development timelines of new innovations by funding contracts and transactions instead of allocating grants. Adopting a bottom-up approach, ARPA-H also appoints program managers for 3-6-year terms, entrusting them with decisions on program development and funding allocation. 

With the new Sprint for Women’s Health initiative, ARPA-H has committed $100 million aimed to invigorate innovators in women's health. The process to apply is explained on the dedicated Sprint for Women’s Health website. With five program managers focusing on six key areas within women's health, ARPA-H seeks to push high-impact biomedical research forward to improve women’s health outcomes. Descriptions of the six areas can be found below.

ARPA-H implements a two-step launch process. Initially, proposers submit a concise three-page summary outlining their ideas to revolutionize women's health research. Following that, selected applicants proceed to a VC-style pitch, where the final awardees are decided.

The program offers two tracks: "Launchpad" and "Spark." The "Spark" track concentrates on early-stage innovations, while the "Launchpad" track focuses on later-stage developments. Participants in the Launchpad track are paired with entrepreneurs-in-residence to address commercialization needs, ensuring products are market-ready within 24 months.

For further clarification, participants are encouraged to consult the latest FAQ section on the submission process. The ARPA-H team also has shared the slides they presented during the Fireside Chat.

Thanks to all who joined, and we apologize for any folks who were not able to participate because we hit our zoom participant max! We hope these resources are helpful, and we wish the best of luck to those who are applying!

To conclude:

We hope this fireside chat series continues to be valuable, and we look forward to seeing you at our next session on future opportunities with the White House Initiative on Women’s Health.

If you wish to submit your pitch to the Coyote Ventures team, please submit via the form on our website.