Cambridge Bioscience Innovation Hub That Brought In $330M Of Funding Slated To Close
Less than three years after a federal investor catalyst hub opened its doors in Cambridge, the company managing it has received notice that the federal government seeks to terminate its agreement with the hub "in large part or in full."
The Trump administration will wind down the innovation hub, which is administered through the federal Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, according to reports from multiple media outlets Friday morning.
In a Jan. 30 letter, ARPA-H official Steven Piggott notified VentureWell, the Hadley-based company tasked with managing the Cambridge hub, that the government planned to terminate the hub agreement and would compensate the company "for allowable and properly incurred costs up to the effective termination date."
The letter indicated work done on one program through the hub, the Sprint for Women's initiative, would continue, The Boston Globe reported. The federal government earmarked $100M for the initiative, which aims to accelerate women's health research.
Since the hub's inception, it has provided approximately $330M in funding to Massachusetts companies, researchers and nonprofits, Gov. Maura Healey said in a statement.
The federal government said it would provide additional information on the matter no later than Feb. 20, the letter states.
A majority of Massachusetts' congressional delegation, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, wrote a letter to President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. asking for an explanation for the stop-work order.
"At this stage, terminating the Investor Catalyst Hub's work would be a profound mistake and a blatant waste of taxpayer dollars and federal investment, especially given that the Hub has been fully operational for two years and is already producing clear, tangible returns," the lawmakers wrote in a letter Friday.
The letter was also signed by U.S. Reps. Lori Trahan, Jake Auchincloss, Seth Moulton, Richard Neal and Stephen Lynch.
In the letter, the lawmakers called for a briefing on the ARPA-H program's status as well as on contingency planning to outline how the work being conducted at the hub would continue.
The move comes the same week that Congress reversed Trump's planned steep cuts to the National Institutes of Health by passing legislation that bolstered the government agency's budget by $415M. The legislation also prevented the Trump administration from reclassifying billions of dollars in previously allowed research expenses as unallowable.
Gov. Healey condemned the move to wind down the hub in her statement, which was published Friday.
“President Trump is yet again attacking research and science. First, he cut billions of dollars in NIH funding," she said. "Now, he is threatening to abruptly close the ARPA-H hub in Massachusetts, wasting taxpayer dollars and derailing efforts to find cures for childhood cancer and bring health care services to rural areas."
An official with ARPA-H categorized reports of the Cambridge hub closing as false, saying the government is only evaluating hub vendors, according to multiple reports.
Cambridge was chosen to host the hub in 2023 by the Biden administration. The hub was characterized at the time as an effort to tackle business and regulatory complexities in healthcare innovation.
Then-President Joe Biden announced plans to launch ARPA-H in 2022, envisioning a new agency dedicated to funding research, and federal administrators eventually chose three innovation hub locations. The other two in Washington, D.C., and Dallas act as the agency's administrative operations and customer experience hubs, respectively.
Officials with Rep. Trahan's office said they had heard the Dallas hub may also be in danger of closing, The Boston Globe reported.
