Defense Health Agency

Administers medical research funding across trauma and disease programmes through the national military health research network.

The Defense Health Agency (DHA) is the U.S. Department of Defense combat-support agency responsible for the Military Health System. DHA's primary mechanism for extramural biomedical research is the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP), which distributes $1.27 billion in FY26 across 34 disease and trauma research programs — one of the largest annual medical research funding pools in the U.S. outside NIH. Programs are individually authorized by Congress each fiscal year within the Defense Health Program appropriation.

CDMRP programs are administered operationally by USAMRDC (U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command) at Fort Detrick, MD on behalf of DHA. Applications flow through eBRAP (ebrap.org) for pre-applications and Grants.gov (CFDA 12.420) for full submissions. Eligibility is broad: universities, non-profit research organizations, and for-profit companies are all eligible across most programs.

DHA also runs a separate SBIR/STTR program for defense medical technology commercialization, releasing topics through the DoD-wide Defense SBIR/STTR Innovation Portal (DSIP). SBIR topics focus on trauma care, prosthetics, hearing restoration, infectious disease, mental health, and combat casualty care.