The Biden Cancer Moonshot has announced a pioneering program under the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to develop innovative technologies to enhance the precision and accuracy of tumor removal in cancer surgeries. The new Precision Surgical Interventions (PSI) program is ARPA-H’s first initiative aimed at cancer and represents a significant milestone for the agency established by President Biden and supported by bipartisan Congress last year.
The PSI program will push forward the Cancer Moonshot goal of halving the cancer death rate by 2047, potentially preventing over 4 million cancer deaths, and will also contribute to President Biden’s Unity Agenda which seeks to end cancer as it exists today. The $2.5 billion investment in ARPA-H, secured through bipartisan support, has partly led to the birth of this program.
Approximately 2 million Americans diagnosed with cancer annually resort to surgery as their first treatment option. However, current surgical technologies struggle to clearly distinguish cancer cells from healthy tissue, leading to repeat surgeries, harder recovery, recurrence, and inflated healthcare costs. The PSI program aims to revolutionize this process by creating new tools to help surgeons differentiate between healthy and cancerous tissue more effectively, enabling successful cancer removal in a single operation. These innovations will also assist surgeons in avoiding vital structures such as nerves, blood vessels, and lymph nodes, thereby minimizing surgical errors.
The PSI program will solicit proposals for techniques to improve cancer visibility and localization of critical anatomical structures during surgery. Multiple awards are expected under this program, depending on the quality of proposals and availability of funds. A Proposers Day for interested research teams will be held on September 7, 2023, in Chicago, Illinois.
If you are developing a technique that could be of interest to ARPA-H under the PSI program, EverGlade can help you make that determination and pursue a successful contract. EverGlade Consulting connects public sector needs with private sector solutions. We help companies whose focus is to secure non-dilutive funding through the federal government and offer pursuit, proposal, and post-award support at agencies including BARDA, ASPR, NIH, DTRA, JPEO, ARPA-H, and DARPA.
