The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health is launching a behavioral health research initiative that will fund up to $139.4 million to develop new therapies.
The initiative, Evidence-Based Validation and Innovation for Rapid Therapeutics in Behavioral Health, will allocate at least $50 million to match state investments in psychedelic research for serious mental illness as part of President Donald Trump’s recent executive order.
The program aims to generate “endpoints to validate the effectiveness of rapid-acting therapies such as digital interventions, neuromodulation, and neuroplastogens, including the safe use of psychedelics,” according to an April 21 news release from HHS. It will also collect and analyze longitudinal data from clinical trials and real-word care settings.
Initial research teams will contribute data across multiple studies, including a phase 2a clinical trial and eight approved clinical trials on psilocybin, as well as three additional approved psilocybin trials.
The effort is designed to create objective measures for behavioral health and reduce reliance on trial-and-error treatment approaches, the release said.
The research teams are led by:
- Alden Scientific (Cambridge, Mass.)
- Attune Neurosciences (San Francisco)
- Motif Neurotech (Houston)
- NeuroFlow (Philadelphia)
- INVI MindHealth (Denver)
- Diamond Therapeutics (Toronto) in partnership with the Tactical Mind Research Coalition (St. Petersburg, Fla.)
- Duke University (Durham, N.C.)
- Holobiome (Boston)
- John Hopkins University School of Medicine (Baltimore)
- Ksana Health (Eugene, Ore.)
- University of Southern California (Los Angeles)
- University of Wisconsin (Madison, Wis.)
- Yale Stress Center (New Haven, Conn.)
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