ARPA-H awards over $100 million to four organizations for biosensor development projects

The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) is advancing personalized medicine by awarding over $100 million to four organizations under its Delphi program. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Novelna, New York University, and the University of Washington are developing wearable patches to track heart failure, inflammation, and perimenopause. Separately, ARPA-H awarded up to $7.3 million to a Likarda-led team, including CaseBioscience, under the BioStabilization Systems program to develop ambient preservation methods for living cell therapies, aiming to eliminate costly cold-chain logistics.

The Delphi program funding and timeline

• ▪ARPA-H expects Delphi program teams to demonstrate full interoperability and secure communication standards within 18 months, perform in vivo prototype demonstrations within 24 months, and complete clinical trials within 54 months.
• ▪The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health plans to commit $117.4 million to the Delphi program over 4.5 years, awarding more than $100 million to four organizations to develop advanced biosensors.

Biosensor projects funded by ARPA-H

• ▪The Massachusetts Institute of Technology secured up to $37.9 million from ARPA-H to develop a clinical-grade, extensible wearable patch powered by patient body heat and on-chip AI for continuous sensing of heart failure biomarkers.
• ▪Novelna received up to $33.2 million from ARPA-H to develop a wearable patch that conducts data through the human body to measure post-heart attack inflammation and reduce hospital readmissions.
• ▪The University of Washington received up to $7.5 million from ARPA-H to develop an ultra-low-power wearable patch that uses engineered proteins to measure perimenopause transition biomarkers from sweat.
• ▪New York University secured up to $30.8 million from ARPA-H to develop a wearable patch that uses under-the-skin microscopic probes, DNA-based sensors, and radio-frequency energy harvesting to continuously monitor inflammation.

The BioStabilization Systems program

• ▪The BioStabilization Systems program aims to develop new technologies to produce, store, and ship living cellular medicines at room temperature without the need for refrigeration.
• ▪The Reversible Ambient Biostabilization team, which includes CaseBioscience, Draper, CPSI Biotech, Fresenius Kabi, Likarda, MiNK Therapeutics, and the Spencer Lab, commenced its 15-month initial phase on September 24, 2026.
• ▪The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health selected a multidisciplinary team led by Likarda as one of only three teams for its BioStabilization Systems program, awarding the team up to $7.3 million.

CaseBioscience's role and expertise

• ▪Dr. Lynda McGinnis, the R&D Director at CaseBioscience, helped pioneer early research into the desiccated storage of sperm more than two decades ago.
• ▪CaseBioscience will contribute its expertise in clinical media formulation, biopreservation, and cellular metabolism to develop and evaluate novel approaches for the long-term ambient stabilization of therapeutic cells.

Debatable claims

• ▪Under-the-skin microscopic probes are too invasive for routine health monitoring
• ▪On-chip AI is not reliable enough for clinical-grade patient monitoring
• ▪Continuous biomarker monitoring does more harm than good for patient health
• ▪The federal government should prioritize funding basic healthcare over high-risk medical technology