ARPA-H Women’s Health Sprint invests millions in health technology solutions

ARPA-H announced today that over $100 million dollars have been granted to 23 women’s health project winners. This is long-awaited news after First Lady Jill Biden shared the White House’s commitment to advancing women’s health research and treatment through the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) in February of 2024. ARPA-H received over 1,700 applications from 34 countries, 45 states, and Washington D.C. across companies and universities eager to tackle problems that can affect up to 50% of the human population.

Winners spanned six priority topic areas, including:

• Topic 1: Women’s Health at Home (5 projects)
• Topic 2: Prioritizing Ovarian Health (2 projects)
• Topic 3: Artemis: Modeling Sex Differences (1 project)
• Topic 4: Women’s Brain Health (5 projects)
• Topic 5: Measurements of Chronic Pain (4 projects)
• Topic 6: Revolutionary Breakthroughs (6 projects)

Seven out of the 23 awarded projects can be categorized as health technology solutions. Health technology solutions are defined for the purpose of this analysis as providing products or services that include the use of wearable devices, smart phones, technology-enabled healthcare at home, and software. The other sixteen winners’ solutions can be categorized as therapeutics such as pharmaceuticals or traditional medical devices.

Health tech project winners by topic

TOPIC 1: Women’s Health at Home

Fast and Affordable Home STI/UTI Test

Glaucus, Inc., $3 million

We aim to develop a new device, the NanoBioChip, based on a semiconductor microchip, for at-home diagnostics, which offers rapid (within minutes) and low cost (~ $25) detection of multiple (up to 50) STIs/UTIs pathogens, while also ensuring effortless compatibility with Wi-Fi and smart phones.

Home-Based Safe & Intelligent Labor Inductions

Aalto University School of Science, $3.2 million

We aim to develop a wireless sensor system that facilitates remote monitoring of maternal and fetal biometrics to enable data-driven decision-making. In the United States, this solution has the potential to reduce nearly $800 million in insurance costs yearly. Our goal is to enhance the quality of outpatient labor induction for a growing number of high-risk pregnancies.

TOPIC 4: WOMEN’S BRAIN HEALTH

Near-Infrared Glymphatic Health Tracker (NIGHT) Study

Massachusetts General Hospital, $3.3 million

We aim to address a critical need for women’s health by enabling effortless monitoring of the glymphatic system (GS) function at home with a wireless NIRS-EEG device during naturalistic sleep. Women face a substantially higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), yet existing methods for assessing GS function are limited and impractical. By offering a non-invasive, cost-effective solution tailored for home use, our GS-FlexNIRS-EEG device could provide valuable insights into GS dysfunction in women, potentially leading to early detection and personalized interventions to mitigate their heightened risk of neurodegenerative disorders like AD.

TOPIC 5: MEASUREMENTS OF CHRONIC PAIN

Multi-Modal Smart Band-Aid for AI Pain Quantification

Tufts University, $3 million

Our objective is to develop tools and methods to quantify nociceptive pain and neuropathic pain. This project aims to quantify pain objectively based on a wide panel of biophysical and biochemical markers. The platform is based on a smart “band-aids:” a self-powered biochemical sensing patch to monitor a suite of chemical biomarkers in interstitial fluid, a non-invasive source of biomarkers. Importantly, the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning will be utilized to develop a single objective score of pain.

Wearable Sweat Sensing System for Chronic Pain

California Institute of Technology, $3 million

We hypothesize that the quantitative, non-invasive analysis of key sweat analytes — including glutamate, tryptophan, cortisol, estradiol, as well as serotonin and substance P— coupled with vital signs, could revolutionize chronic pain assessment by making it objective and personalized. This project seeks to develop a wireless multimodal wearable system to simultaneously monitor these sweat analytes along with vital signs. Through monitoring sweat biomarkers along with vital signs in women subjects with menstrual migraines using a single integrated wearable system and analyzing the data with machine learning, we could predict the levels of pain in real time.

Novel Physiologic Measure of Chronic Pain in Women

Children’s Research Institute, $8.1 million

This project will work to develop a physiologic biomarker that enables an objective characterization of pain type and intensity. When fully developed, this technology will serve as an objective measure of pain, enabling disease agnostic, non-invasive, point-of-care assessments, and monitoring of treatment efficacy in women with chronic pain.

TOPIC 6: REVOLUTIONARY BREAKTHROUGHS

Revolutionizing Endometriosis Precision Medicine

Nura Health, $3 million

This project outlines the construction of a novel precision medicine data platform with a goal to improve health outcomes for patients with endometriosis. By combining data from three entities in a consortium aligned to solve endometriosis, this project aims to develop a highly characterized non-invasive, multi-omic diagnostic signature for endometriosis. The platform will be informed through digitally enabled symptom management and detailed pharmacogenetic insights in order to offer individualized treatment plans. The integration of these technologies seeks to refine treatment strategies, improve diagnostic accuracy, and facilitate personalized medication matching while moving away from a trial-and-error approach, instead offering tailored treatment plans based on the distinct subtypes of endometriosis identified. A powered clinical study could validate this integrated approach, revolutionizing the management of endometriosis and leading to enhanced patient outcomes, fewer complications, reduced costs, and accelerated treatment.

For more:

• Watch the ARPA-H Women’s Health Sprint Announcement Video
• Read the White House Announcement

Katie D. McMillan, MPH is the CEO of Well Made Health, LLC, a business strategy consulting firm for health technology companies. She is also a curious researcher and writer focusing on digital health evidence, healthcare innovation, and women’s health. Katie can be reached at katie@wellmadehealth.com or LinkedIn.