“Some of the problems we face every day — especially in health and disease — are so large they can seem insurmountable,” Dr. Wegrzyn said in a statement provided by the White House. “I have seen firsthand the tremendous expertise and energy the U.S. biomedical and biotechnological enterprise can bring to solve some of the toughest health challenges.”
Congress has appropriated $1 billion for ARPA-H, which is housed within the National Institutes of Health but reports directly to Xavier Becerra, the secretary of health and human services — an arrangement that is intended to keep the new agency from getting too caught up in the federal bureaucracy. While its director is not a Senate-confirmed position, Mr. Biden may face pushback from Republicans, some of whom have argued that the agency duplicates the N.I.H.’s efforts.
The agency already has an acting deputy director, Adam H. Russell, also a DARPA alumnus, who has been laying the technical infrastructure and other groundwork to get the new agency off the ground. Dr. Collins said Dr. Wegrzyn will begin work on Oct. 1. Her main goal will be to hire program managers who will bring bold ideas that the agency wants to pursue, and she will spend a limited time, perhaps three years, at the agency, he said.
“They will arrive, they will do a little bit of due diligence, and then they’ll have to pitch the idea to Dr. Wegrzyn,” Dr. Collins said. “If she says thumbs-up, then off they go with money to spend, to figure out how to put together the appropriate partners to get the work done.”
Coming up with successful new innovations, he said, will take time. But Steve Brozak, an investment banker whose company, WBB Securities, specializes in biotechnology, said that if the agency were going to be a success, Dr. Wegrzyn would have to move quickly to distinguish its work from the rest of the federal bureaucracy.
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