Healthcare businesses and health technology startups in the US can access federal grant funding through NIH SBIR, HRSA, CMS Innovation Center, and agency-specific health R&D programmes. This guide covers the main routes.
Healthcare is the most heavily funded sector in US federal R&D, with NIH alone distributing over $40 billion annually. For small businesses developing health technology, diagnostics, therapeutics, digital health tools, or care delivery innovations, the federal funding landscape is substantial - but also more structured and demanding than most sectors. Understanding which agency funds which type of health innovation is the first step to navigating it effectively.
NIH is the largest single source of health SBIR funding. Its institutes - NCI (cancer), NHLBI (heart and lung), NIMH (mental health), NICHD (child health), and others - each run their own SBIR programmes with specific topic areas aligned to their research missions. Award sizes match the standard SBIR structure: Phase I at $275,000–$300,000, Phase II at $750,000–$2 million for NIH (NIH Phase II awards are sometimes larger than the standard). Finding the right NIH institute for your technology - and identifying specific funding opportunity announcements (FOAs) that match your research area - is more important than a generic NIH application strategy.
The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) funds health workforce development, community health centres, rural health, maternal and child health, and HIV/AIDS programmes. For businesses providing services to under-resourced health systems - health information technology for federally qualified health centres, telehealth for rural communities, training tools for community health workers - HRSA grant programmes are relevant. HRSA funding is generally service-oriented rather than R&D-oriented, which makes it accessible to a different type of health business than NIH.
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) tests new payment and delivery models in Medicare and Medicaid. It runs model tests where providers and organisations participate in funded programmes - not grants in the traditional sense, but significant financial support for health care organisations developing and testing new care delivery approaches. For health technology companies, getting integrated into a CMMI model as a technology vendor (rather than the model participant) is a significant revenue and validation opportunity.
The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) funds development of medical countermeasures - vaccines, diagnostics, therapeutics, and devices - for public health emergencies. BARDA awards are typically larger than standard SBIR (tens to hundreds of millions for advanced development) but require more advanced technology. For companies with credible medical countermeasure products, BARDA's Other Transaction Authority (OTA) and BARDA DRIVe (Driving Radical Innovation in Vaccine Ecosystems) are relevant programmes.
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