“The National Institutes of Health has awarded seven contracts to companies and academic institutions to develop digital health solutions that help address the COVID-19 pandemic. The work could lead to user-friendly tools such as smartphone apps, wearable devices, and software that can identify and trace contacts of infected individuals, keep track of verified COVID-19 test results, and monitor the health status of infected and potentially infected individuals.”
“The National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), both part of NIH, selected the seven projects from nearly 200 different ideas. The projects represent a broad range of solutions for immediate public health needs related to the pandemic, and several focus on solutions for medically underserved communities and people with limited access to health care, who are disproportionally affected by COVID-19…”
“This effort is a key component of NCI’s and NIBIB’s congressionally supported response to COVID-19. These include NCI’s $306 million effort to support serological science research, expand testing capacity, and develop other technologies for COVID-19, as well as NIBIB’s supplemental funding to address COVID-19.”
“The contracts are being awarded in two phases. Initial awards are for phase one and will be used to demonstrate feasibility of the project. After assessment of phase one results, a contractual option for phase two would provide additional funding for further development of the awardee’s program and demonstration of utility in response to the pandemic. If all seven projects were to move into the second phase, the total value of the contracts in this network would be $22.8 million. The awardees have one year to complete both phases.”
“The proposed digital health tools will leverage multiple data sources, including wearable devices and COVID-19 diagnostic and serology test results. Each organization will share data and other assets in an NIH-supported central data hub in ways that protect individuals’ privacy. To spur additional research, researchers will have access to data stored in the hub…” Read the full press release here.
Source: NIH awards contracts to develop innovative digital health technologies for COVID-19 – September 15, 2020. NIH.
