Funding opportunities

The GHDx Center catalyzes exploration and advancement of promising point-of-care diagnostic technologies appropriate for use in low-resource settings by providing targeted technical and financial support to technology developers. 

Opportunities for support are focused on two areas:

  1. Exploratory technology projects to advance pre-prototype product development; and
  2. Laboratory and field-based clinical testing of prototype point-of-care diagnostics.

Through competitive solicitation processes, the GHDx Center identifies, selects, and supports innovative and promising technologies that could have a significant positive impact on public health outcomes. Candidate technologies are assessed for anticipated health impact, relevance to the needs and realities of low-resource settings, and market-related issues that could affect the eventual products’ commercialization prospects.

 

Request for Letters of Interest

Emerging Technologies for Point-of-Care Diagnostics for Low-Resource Settings

PATH is an international nonprofit organization, working to improve health worldwide, especially in resource-limited settings. In collaboration with the University of Washington, PATH has created the Center for Point-of-Care Diagnostics for Global Health (GHDx Center). With our collaborators, we are seeking letters of interest (LOI) from organizations who wish to be considered for funding to develop point-of-care diagnostic technologies. Funding for the GHDx Center is provided by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (National Institutes of Health) as part of the Point-of-Care Technologies Research Network (RFA-EB-06-002).

The purpose of this funding opportunity is to support the development of current or emerging technologies and improve point-of-care diagnostics for low-resource settings. This funding opportunity is specifically seeking to fund technologies that enable nucleic acid testing to be performed in primary health care facilities in low-resource settings.

The LOI process is competitive. It includes a request for brief descriptions of your concept, capabilities, and proposed budget. From the submitted LOIs, we will select approximately 10 candidates who will be invited to submit full applications. The applications of the 10 finalists will be reviewed by a team of external peer reviewers, and 2 candidates are expected to receive funding to pursue the development of their technology.

We are inviting organizations to submit an LOI for consideration. Information related to this project, including background on the project, instructions for responding to this request for LOI, and a copy of the Solicitation can be found in the links provided below. The most complete information is in the Solicitation. Parties should respond only to the request for LOI at this time.

A schedule of this process is listed below. Please note that we will accept questions on this request for LOI up to the time noted below. All deadlines are 17:00 Pacific Daylight Time.

Questions and Answers on Submitting Letters of Interest

We have posted responses to questions about the letter of interest in the downloads section below.

Summary of Deadlines

Item Due Date
Request for LOI announcement April 8, 2008
Questions regarding the Request for LOI April 22, 2008
Responses to questions published April 29, 2008
Letters of Interest May 14, 2008
Initial candidates selected May 28, 2008
Questions on the Solicitation June 4, 2008
Responses to questions published June 10, 2008
Full applications July 7, 2008
Interviews with successful candidates (optional at the GHDx Center’s discretion) August–September 2008
Estimated award date September–October 2008

Downloads

Complete information, instructions, and forms can be downloaded from these links:

Terms and conditions of the National Institutes of Health can be found at:  http://grants.nih.gov/grants/policy/nihgps%5F2003