Originally published by This Week in Worcester on May 17, 2022
In today’s daily 5 Things You Need to Know feature, ThisWeekinWorcester.com explores five important items and stories that Worcester and Central Massachusetts residents should keep a close eye on.
These five things can cover a whole range of subjects and issues that we feel are pertinent to understanding what’s going on in the city and the cities and towns surrounding Worcester.
In today’s edition – Tuesday, May 17 – Massachusetts will seek to be the home of a new federal government agency, a new cocktail lounge opens this week on Millbury Street, stART on the Street 2022 applications are now open, Seven Hills Golf holds a raffle to benefit Project New Hope, and Worcester ranks as a top 100 city to start a career.
Massachusetts To Compete For New Federal “High Risk-High Reward” Biomedical Research Agency
Governor Charlie Baker, U.S. House Committee on Ways & Means Chair Richard E. Neal, University of Massachusetts President Marty Meehan, and MassBio CEO Joe Boncore have launched an effort that includes top leaders from Massachusetts higher education, industry and government to rally support for locating the newly-funded federal Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) in Massachusetts.
ARPA-H was created by the Biden Administration to accelerate research aimed at preventing and curing diseases ranging from infectious disease, chronic disease, Alzheimer’s, and cancer. The March 2022 omnibus passed by Congress and signed into law by the President invested $1 billion to launch ARPA-H. The President’s Fiscal Year 2023 budget proposal includes an additional $6.5 billion in funding for ARPA-H for the next three years.
The agency is modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and is designed to be more agile than the National Institutes of Health (NIH). ARPA-H does not yet have an agency headquarters.
With several states expected to pursue the headquarters for ARPA-H, Baker, Neal, Meehan, and Boncore stressed the importance of rapidly building the strongest possible case for Massachusetts, grounded by the concentration of world-class research universities, hospitals, companies, and a bi-partisan commitment in government to build the life sciences ecosystem.