“Clinical Repurposing Trials Led by a Chicago Area Early Stage Investigator” is one of 4 tracks for Cures Within Reach’s 2024 funding opportunity for Chicago area institutions and PIs. Specific focus areas for the other tracks include Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Pediatrics and Veterans issues. When submitting a Letter of Intent, applicants should select “Chicago area” and “Other” for the “Type of Request for Proposals” question, and then list all the applicable track(s) for their research in the “Other” text box: DEI, Early Stage Investigator, Pediatrics and/or Veterans. Visit https://bit.ly/cwrrfps to learn more about each track.

This Request for Proposals (RFP) from Cures Within Reach (CWR) is seeking clinical repurposing trials from any research institution in the greater Chicago area led by an Early Stage Investigator, who is within 10 years of completing an advanced degree or medical residency, in any unsolved disease. While the funded institutions must be in Chicagoland, patients and collaborators can be both within and outside the Chicago area. Our strongest preference is for proof of concept, pivotal, Phase I or Phase IIA clinical repurposing trials. Clinical trials utilizing telehealth or other remote strategies are encouraged to apply.

Repurposed therapies must be approved and/or generally recognized as safe for human use by some regulatory agency, such as the US Food and Drug Administration, European Medicines Agency, Health Canada or Japan’s Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency, and may include drugs, devices, nutraceuticals, diagnostics or cellular/gene therapies, as well as combination therapies. These repurposed therapies must be tested in a new indication for which they are not already approved or used widely in the clinic as standard of care.

CWR is accepting budgets of up to $100,000 for this funding opportunity, which includes the required institutional match (see Important Funding Information below). Specific budget definitions for different types of costs can be found in the Letter of Intent (LOI) submission instructions on ProposalCentral. For Principal Investigators (PIs) who are interested in including underrepresented patients (as defined by the NIH) in the proposed clinical trial, CWR may provide an optional $5,000 – $15,000 in additional financial support for approved community engagement costs. Interested PIs may include any ideas and/or plans for engagement / collaborations with community-based organizations to engage underrepresented communities in the clinical trial. However, community engagement is not required, and community engagement costs should not be included in the requested funding amount submitted to CWR in the LOI. If a clinical trial is selected for funding, CWR will contact the PI about potential community engagement.

PIs who have not received extramural funding previously and/or who do not currently have their own lab should include a Letter of Support from a funded, senior researcher who will act as a mentor for the proposed research and the PI with their LOI submission.

All submissions for this RFP are via our online grant management platform on ProposalCentral at
https://bit.ly/submittocwr using the Geographic Specific Repurposing Research program. Click on the “Apply Now” button on the right to begin a submission. PIs should select “Chicago area” and “Other” for the “Type of Request for Proposals” question, and then list the applicable Chicago-focused track(s) for their research in the “Other” text box: DEI, Early Stage Investigator, Pediatrics and/or Veterans. PIs can include as many tracks as appropriate. For LOI submission instructions and information about CWR’s funding opportunities generally, visit https://bit.ly/cwrrfps.

CWR has a 2-stage submission process, starting with the LOI. Full scientific details are not required at the LOI stage. LOIs for this RFP will be reviewed, scored and ranked by CWR staff, our external Grant Review Committee and/or our Science Advisory Board members, and the top-rated LOI submissions will be invited to submit a full proposal as the second stage. PIs will be contacted approximately 6-8 weeks following the LOI submission deadline with a decision.

The LOI submission deadline is 11:59pm U.S. Eastern Time on June 7, 2024. Contact Clare Thibodeaux, PhD at clare@cureswithinreach.org with any questions.