Simulation-augmented, Real-time Platform Adaptive Seamless Trials (SURPASS)
SURPASS supports cross-disciplinary teams building adaptive trial platforms, predictive models, and real-time analysis to evaluate drugs and biologics faster, at lower cost, and with fewer participants.
Funder: Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health
Due Dates: October 12, 2026 (Webinar registration) | October 15, 2026 (Webinar) | October 28, 2026 (Proposers’ Day registration) | November 6, 2026 (Proposers’ Day) | November 30, 2026 (Solution Summary) | January 22, 2027 (Proposal)
Funding Amounts: ARPA-H programs generally receive $50–150 million across performers; individual awards are negotiated after selection.
Summary: SURPASS supports adaptive clinical trial platforms, predictive models, and real-time analysis to evaluate drugs and biologics faster, at lower cost, and with fewer participants.
Key Information: A Solution Summary is required; applicants must await ARPA-H feedback before proceeding to a proposal.
Description
The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) runs SURPASS to modernize clinical trials and reduce the time, cost, and participant burden of evaluating drugs and biologics. The program seeks perpetual, adaptive platform trials that replace fragmented clinical phases, repeated startups, and static designs with predictive computational models, shared infrastructure, common control groups, and real-time analysis.
SURPASS seeks groundbreaking ideas from cross-disciplinary teams spanning statistics, artificial intelligence, clinical trial design, operations, and regulation. Its three coordinated technical areas focus on faster trials with fewer patients, a continuous inference engine for faster decisions, and an agentic operations layer to reduce time and cost. The program aims to establish new standards and shared infrastructure while addressing technical and regulatory risks, helping promising treatments reach patients sooner.
