Life Science Washington Institute is one of only 13 accelerators in the nation to partner with BARDA’s DRIVe program to solve challenging problems spanning modern health security threats and daily medical care.
View the webinar recording from June 4, 2020. 
What is BARDA?
The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) is part of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response within
the US Department of Health and Human Services. Since it was established in 2006, BARDA has facilitated 42 FDA approvals, licenses, and clearances for products addressing health security threats. BARDA’s mission is accomplished through public-private partnerships with industry to share risk, improve efficiency, and accelerate development while sustaining a marketplace that guarantees continued access to the vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and other medical products vital to health security.
What is DRIVe and the DRIVe Accelerator Network?
The Division of Research, Innovation, and Ventures (DRIVe) was established by BARDA with the goal of building a portfolio of products representing disruptive and innovative approaches to transforming health security. The DRIVe Accelerator Network was launched in 2018 to partner with investment and innovator communities across the nation to stimulate innovation
through both non-dilutive and dilutive funding sources. Life Science Washington Institute is one of thirteen accelerators participating in this national network. BARDA has also extended their focus is to address the current COVID 19 outbreak through two major solicitations: EZ-BAA (funding up to $749K) and BAA (funding up to $8M) with EZ-BAA being under the DRIVe program. Learn about funding opportunities available to COVID-19 and other areas of interest.
BARDA COVID-19 response related areas of Interest :
- COVID-19 Therapeutics
- Immunomodulators or Therapeutics targeting lung repair
- Pre & Post-Exposure Prophylaxis
- Respiratory Protective Devices
- Ventilators
- Advanced Manufacturing Technologies
Non-COVID-19 DRIVe Areas of Interest (At this time, only accepting responses related to SARS-CoV-2 programs):
Early Notification to Act, Control, and Treat (ENACT)
ENACT’s focus areas are on-person, wearable, and biosensing devices (host response and direct pathogen detection); host-based diagnostic devices; indirect indicators and artificial intelligence for prediction; and biomarker discovery and panel validation.
The focus areas for Solving Sepsis are advanced research and development of sepsis diagnostics and devices, post-sepsis monitoring, pediatric devices, and implementation science technologies.
DRIVe will seek a limited number of additional extremely bold, radical, and disruptive innovative solutions that will have the ability to transform health security. These include – but are not limited to – creating universal treatment options for broad classes of pathogens, ensuring access to life-saving medical countermeasures, and transforming medical countermeasure development by eradicating animal testing.
For information on applying for one of the BARDA funding opportunities, visit https://drive.hhs.gov/partner.html
For any questions, more information or to request an informational meeting contact Laura Sconyers laura@lswinstitute.org.