STAT+: ARPA-H to invest $62 million to develop FDA-authorized AI to help treat heart failure — SkimNews
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- ARPA-H plans to commit $62.7 million through its new ADVOCATE program to develop AI agents that direct heart failure treatment, including assessing symptom severity, prescribing drugs, and ordering lab tests under FDA authorization.
- ADVOCATE announced its first batch of awardees on Wednesday: Atman Health, UpDoc, Tempus AI, Stanford University, Duke University, and Kaiser Permanente health system, with $33.7 million committed for the first year.
- ARPA-H may still fund additional teams beyond the initial six, and the remaining funds beyond year one could be renegotiated up or down.
- Heart failure affects 6.7 million Americans, many of whom lack access to specialists, and the program specifically targets rural and other underserved settings where specialist care is hardest to reach.
- The devices are designed to be partially autonomous — capable of prescribing drugs and ordering labs rather than merely advising clinicians.
Why it matters: The 6.7 million Americans with heart failure — many without specialist access in rural and underserved areas — are the direct target for these AI devices. Six teams across industry and academia now have first-year funding to build clinical AI that prescribes drugs and orders labs, making this a concrete test of whether the FDA will authorize autonomous prescribing devices.
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