US House approves creation of Health Innovation Agency

The legislation authorizing the approval of ARPA-H said the new agency will create, support and manage programs that aim to “catalyze the development of transformative, evidenced-based, use-driven capabilities, platforms, and technologies in a range of biomedical and health research areas.” Additionally, the new agency will be tasked with forging collaborations among different government agencies as well as academic institutions to support and accelerate innovative technologies and approaches to the development of new therapeutics and other treatments for various diseases.

The legislation also directs ARPA-H to promote and develop new analytical techniques that can detect diseases even earlier than current capabilities allow. Hopefully, this will allow the medical community to intervene in disease progression even earlier.

Speaking in support of the legislation on the House floor Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Colorado Democrat, said the ARPA-H will “make the impossible possible.”

“What we need more now is an all-hands-on-deck approach to end these illnesses, and that’s exactly why this legislation was developed,” DeGette said, according to the report. “It will create a new advanced research agency, ARPA-H, which will bring together some of the world’s greatest minds and give them access to the federal government’s seemingly unlimited resources to make the impossible possible,” she added.

If ARPA-H is authorized by both houses of Congress, the new agency will be tasked with building what is being called “high-risk, high-reward capabilities” to drive biomedical breakthroughs that can provide “transformative solutions” for all patients. The White House said these breakthroughs can range from molecular to societal. BioSpace