Nonclinical Services for Development of Interventional Agents for Infectious Diseases

Research supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), strives to understand, treat, and ultimately prevent the myriad infectious, immunologic, and allergic diseases that threaten millions of human lives. The NIAID Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (DMID) supports extramural research for the investigation, control and prevention of diseases caused by all infectious agents other than HIV. Support for basic and applied research to develop and evaluate therapeutics, vaccines, and diagnostics is provided through a variety of research grants and contracts. DMID also supports an array of research resources and services to assist investigators, including programs that provide or make available genomic data and technologies; organisms and state-of-the-art reagents; biocontainment facilities; and preclinical and clinical translational research services (https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/microbiology-and-infectious-diseases-resources).

The development and introduction of new therapeutic products against potential agents of bioterrorism, drug-resistant pathogens, emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, as well as infectious diseases prevalent in resource-limited countries remain a high public health priority. To assist in filling these public health gaps, the NIAID requires a nontraditional, proactive, and product development-oriented program to provide preclinical and non-clinical development support for promising therapeutic candidates that emerge from academia, the private sector, or other sources. The suite of services will encompass those activities commonly associated with the development of interventional products for infectious disease required for New Drug Application (NDA), Biologic License Applications (BLA) and/or Investigational New Drug (IND) applications. Consequently, DMID recognizes that to obtain the full spectrum of expertise or facilities required to perform all activities set forth in this solicitation, individual organizations will likely need the expertise and resources of other organizations or persons through consortia agreements, partnerships, subcontracts, and/or consultants.