Title 42 › CHAPTER 6A — PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE › SUBCHAPTER III — NATIONAL RESEARCH INSTITUTES › Part J — Advanced Research Projects Agency–Health › § 290c
Creates a new agency called the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Health (ARPA‑H) inside the National Institutes of Health and requires the Secretary to move the existing ARPA for Health’s people, work, powers, and money into ARPA‑H within 180 days after December 29, 2022. ARPA‑H must have an Office of the Director, up to 8 program offices (and extra special project offices if needed), and at least two‑thirds of those program offices must focus only on research and development. The Secretary may free ARPA‑H from some NIH rules if needed to help it move fast, but must publish in the Federal Register within 90 days after December 29, 2022, what rules will be exempted and why. ARPA‑H cannot be located on existing NIH campuses and must have offices in at least 3 different geographic areas. ARPA‑H’s job is to push high‑risk, high‑reward science to create big new tools and technologies for preventing, detecting, diagnosing, treating, or curing disease that traditional programs or markets won’t solve quickly. It will fund work that proves concepts, builds cross‑discipline platforms, speeds translation from discovery to health products, and makes new tools like advanced computational models for early detection. The President appoints a Director who reports to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The Director must have strong R&D and partnership experience, serves a 4‑year term and may be reappointed once, and picks a Deputy Director. The Director sets strategy, approves or ends projects, sets milestones, makes sure projects fit ARPA‑H goals, encourages public‑private partnerships, and coordinates with other federal agencies. Program managers are appointed for 3‑year terms (renewable once). ARPA‑H can make grants, contracts, prizes, and certain “other transactions” with oversight rules, and it may hire up to 210 staff with flexible pay and hiring authorities; generally staff should not have been NIH employees for the prior 3 years unless uniquely qualified or already at ARPA‑H on December 29, 2022. ARPA‑H must favor funding work done in the United States, avoid awards to entities from certain covered foreign countries, and limit multiple concurrent awards to the same entity. It must send an annual report starting within 1 year after December 29, 2022, seek a National Academies evaluation not later than 5 years after that date, and the Comptroller General must do an independent portfolio review within 1 year and every 4 years after. ARPA‑H gets authorization of $500,000,000 for each fiscal year 2024 through 2028, to remain available until spent, and its budget request must be shown as a separate NIH appropriation. Definitions: transformative health technology — a new, broadly useful technology that could revolutionize care for serious unmet health needs and faces big technical challenges or lacks market incentives.
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The Public Health and Welfare, Source: USLM XML via OLRC
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Citation
42 U.S.C. § 290c
Title 42, The Public Health and Welfare
Last Updated
Sep 23, 2026
Release point: 119-110