NIH NHLBI Small Business SBIR

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute is one of NIH's institutes within HHS, and its small-business SBIR program backs companies working on heart, lung, blood, and sleep disorders. The standard funding track offers awards from $300,000 to $2.4 million, with a median actual award around $500,000, and the program is open to U.S.-incorporated for-profit small businesses. Grants arrive multiple times a year under the SBIR cadence. Eligibility is set for companies at roughly TRL 2-7, with at least half of founders meeting the U.S. citizenship requirement in the structured profile and the same-project stacking restriction applying here as well. That makes the route most practical for companies that can keep the project tightly scoped and development-ready. NHLBI is strongest for technologies tied to cardiovascular, pulmonary, or hematology problems, especially where the path from concept to clinical utility is easy to explain. The institute's mission is broad enough to include prevention, treatment, research, and education, so applicants do best when they connect a device, software product, assay, or therapeutic platform to a concrete clinical bottleneck.

No upcoming rounds verified. Cadence: Multiple per year.