The FY19 Joint Warfighter Medical Research Program (JWMRP) Request for Information (RFI) was released on January 3. This program is specifically designed for previous DoD awardees and intended to fund follow-on studies for those projects. Eligibility requirements have changed for JWMRP over the years, and now, any investigator who has received medical research funding through a CDMRP mechanism or through one of the Services is eligible.
The application process consists of two steps: applicants must submit a letter of interest and then be invited by the program to submit a full proposal. The deadline for submitting a Letter of Interest is February 1, 2019 at 5pm ET. The RFI document and the template can be found at https://www.fbo.gov/index.php?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=20e4f6077dc1e72dd868d098f40d7b46&tab=core&_cview=0at
Key considerations:
- Proposals MUST align to one of the 6 military interest areas described in the RFI. Non-military relevant areas such as cancer will not be applicable.
- In FY19, the program has been appropriated $50M across all 6 topics. Each program office might get to support 2-3 proposals. A rule of thumb would be to keep proposal budgets under a $2-3 million threshold.
- All research or product development efforts submitted for continuation must currently be at a minimum Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 4 or 5 (Proof of Concept and safety of candidate drug formulations/constructions have been demonstrated in a defined animal model for drugs, biologics, vaccines, and devices or there is a prototype, hardware and software pieces work together, and models use real data for informatics-type research).
- This means, for example, you would need to have some preclinical data, perhaps moving from a small to a large animal model. How this will be defined depends on the exact nature of your project. With that in mind:
- “The funds appropriated for the JWMRP shall be used to augment and accelerate high priority DoD and Service medical requirements and to continue prior year initiatives that are close to achieving their objectives and yield a benefit to military medicine. These funds shall not be used for new projects or for basic research.”
- Because this is an RFI, the government is not obligated to give you any feedback on your Letter of Interest. If you are invited to submit a proposal, you will receive a notification. Otherwise, it’s possible you will not receive any written notice.
If you have questions about this or would like help, the Conafay Group is available to answer questions, brainstorm, and review drafts.
Filed Under: Funding Opportunities