DoD Military Burn, Technology/Therapeutic Development Award | HT9425 23 MBRP TTDA

Opportunity Information: Apply for HT9425 23 MBRP TTDA

The DoD Military Burn, Technology/Therapeutic Development Award (TTDA) is a product-driven funding opportunity under the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) Military Burn Research Program (MBRP). Its main purpose is to push promising preclinical burn-care advances toward real-world, usable products that can work in resource-limited environments, especially in the pre-hospital and early acute phases of care typical of military Roles of Care 1 through 3. In practical terms, this mechanism is meant to help move strong laboratory and preclinical results into something closer to field-ready capability that can improve the detection, diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of complications for burn-injured casualties, with a clear focus on relevance to Service Members, Veterans, and other beneficiaries.

The program supports development of tangible medical products such as devices, drugs, or biologics, and it can also consider "knowledge products" as long as they directly support a technology or therapeutic that is being developed. In this context, a knowledge product is a non-materiel deliverable rooted in evidence that helps shift clinical practice, training, tools, or decision-making across the continuum of care, including prevention. The emphasis is still on translation and implementation: the knowledge component has to be aimed at changing practice or enabling a materiel solution, not just generating general insights.

A key eligibility and readiness expectation is that proposals must already be beyond the earliest discovery stage. By the pre-application deadline, the proposed product must be at least Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 4 or Knowledge Readiness Level (KRL) 4, and applicants must already have proof-of-concept plus a prototype or preliminary version that shows the product could be useful. Applications are expected to include solid supporting data, which can be unpublished or drawn from existing literature, but must clearly justify why the approach is ready for this next translation step. The mechanism is built for projects with significant preliminary evidence that are not yet ready for clinical use, and it is designed to reduce the gap between promising preclinical work and later-stage development.

The kinds of activities the award is meant to fund are those that mature a technology or therapeutic toward regulatory and deployment milestones. Examples include testing or validating new agents, delivery systems, modified lead compounds, or devices in established preclinical models; planning and executing pilot or full-scale Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) production for advanced preclinical studies; conducting ADME and toxicity work for drug development; and running studies that enable an Investigational New Drug (IND) application or Investigational Device Exemption (IDE). A central requirement is a credible transition plan and regulatory strategy describing how the product will move to the next stage after the award ends, such as advancement toward clinical trials (outside this mechanism) and eventual delivery to military use or the civilian market. The Department of Defense wants to see a realistic path for continued funding, partners, resources, and regulatory steps rather than a project that ends at the conclusion of the grant.

From a funding and award-structure standpoint, the TTDA is issued as an assistance agreement, meaning the government is supporting a public purpose rather than buying a product or service for direct federal use. Awards may be either grants or cooperative agreements, and the deciding factor is how much substantial involvement the DoD anticipates during performance. If the agency expects to collaborate or participate actively (for example, through ongoing coordination or intervention), a cooperative agreement is more likely; if not, it will typically be a grant. For FY23, the anticipated maximum total cost per award is up to $2 million for the full period of performance. CDMRP planned an overall allotment of about $4 million to support roughly two awards, with actual funding dependent on federal availability and the number and quality of applications. Awards were expected to be made no later than September 30, 2024, and FY23 funds tied to resulting awards were expected to remain available for obligation and use only within the federal time limits, expiring for use on September 30, 2029.

Reviewers place heavy weight on impact and military relevance. Competitive applications are expected to clearly explain how the product would significantly improve burn care in austere, resource-constrained conditions and how it could enable treatment closer to the point of injury, including use by combat medics or even non-medical first responders. Applicants are also expected to connect the work to burn injury needs associated with combat contexts and to explain how the resulting technology, therapeutic, or practice-changing knowledge could actually be implemented to meet a military requirement.

Important scope boundaries apply. Clinical trials and clinical research studies are not permitted under this specific award mechanism, and applicants who want to run clinical research are directed to the MBRP Clinical Translational Research Award instead. However, the program does allow certain human-based work that does not cross into prohibited clinical research, such as using human anatomical specimens when necessary for device validation or in vitro or ex vivo studies. The announcement also draws distinctions between clinical trials (prospective assignment of human subjects to interventions to evaluate outcomes) and other forms of clinical research, but the bottom line for this mechanism is that clinical trials and clinical research are not allowed here.

The opportunity also stresses rigor and reproducibility, especially for preclinical and animal studies. Projects are expected to follow best practices such as randomization, blinding, sample-size estimation, and transparent data handling, consistent with widely cited standards for improving the predictive value of preclinical research. If animal models are used, applicants must submit an Animal Research Plan and align planning and reporting with ARRIVE guidelines 2.0. On the compliance side, any DoD-funded work involving human data, human anatomical substances, human subjects, or cadavers must go through oversight by the USAMRDC Office of Human and Animal Research Oversight, including Office of Human Research Oversight review, in addition to local IRB or ethics review. Animal work similarly requires review by the Animal Care and Use Review Office in addition to the local IACUC. The timeline planning matters because the announcement flags that these DoD regulatory reviews can take months, and multi-institution projects need a written plan for single-IRB arrangements.

Administratively, the opportunity is identified as Funding Opportunity Number HT9425-23-MBRP-TTDA, offered by the Department of Defense through the Department of the Army USAMRAA, under CFDA 12.420. Eligibility is described as unrestricted (open to any entity type, subject to the specific rules in the full announcement). The original posting date was April 26, 2023, and the original closing date listed was September 4, 2023.

• The Department of Defense, Dept. of the Army -- USAMRAA in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "DoD Military Burn, Technology/Therapeutic Development Award" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 12.420.
• This funding opportunity was created on Apr 26, 2023.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Sep 04, 2023. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 2 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

Apply for HT9425 23 MBRP TTDA

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: