FASTPASS
Fast Assessment of Solutions, Therapeutics, Pharmaceuticals, and Supplies
The Big Question
What if we could verify the quality and safety of every dose of every medicine, every time?
The Problem
- Drug-related morbidity and mortality cost the U.S. healthcare system $528 billion per year.
- Drug recalls affect the medication taken by over 150 million Americans each year. Most recalls only happen after patients are exposed to these products.
- FDA inspections keep our medicines safe, but increasing numbers of imports increase our need for tools at the ports to augment this system. Today, only a small percentage of imported drugs are sampled and tested upon arrival at ports – a process that takes weeks.
The Solution
- The Fast Assessment of Solutions, Therapeutics, Pharmaceuticals, and Supplies (FASTPASS) program aims to protect Americans from harm caused by substandard or contaminated medicines.
- The goal of FASTPASS is to enable sampling of pharmaceutical shipments in minutes, without opening boxes, by building rapid, non-destructive screening tools that can verify drug quality and safety through packaging, in near real-time, at ports, warehouses, and distribution centers.
Only ARPA-H can...
- Tackle this urgent public health gap that no single agency, manufacturer, or current technology can close alone.
- Achieve a significant technical leap in multiple sensing technologies.
- Partner with early adopters like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to ensure program successes are implemented at scale.
Solicitation
What ARPA-H needs to solve this problem
FASTPASS has two technical areas:
TA1 SAMPLE: TA1 performers will develop advanced through-packaging sensing technologies to evaluate the chemical makeup of a product using spectrographic or other non-contact, non-destructive means.
TA2 DETECT: TA2 performers will develop analytics and models that will transform existing spectroscopic techniques and also address four areas critical to implementing next generation techniques, fully realizing the technological developments in TA1.
To achieve its goals, FASTPASS encourages collaboration that integrates expertise across the fields of non-contact spectroscopy, artificial intelligence and machine learning, pharmaceutical chemistry, and hardware engineering to enable confident decision support for product quality and safety.
Solicitation Notice ID: ARPA-H-SOL-26-160
ARPA-H invites interested parties to review the solicitation, which is posted and maintained on SAM.gov. The solicitation outlines the opportunity and its requirements, key dates and deadlines, submission documents and templates, evaluation criteria for submissions, and information on how to apply.
Key Dates:
- Solution Summary Due: September 21, 2026 (4:00PM ET)
Submitting a Solution Summary presentation slide deck is required to move forward with this opportunity. - Proposal Due: November 10, 2026 (4:00PM ET)
Reminder: Details subject to change. Please reference the solicitation documents for the most up-to-date information.
Ready to apply? To submit a Solution Summary or Full Proposal, sign-in to the ARPA-H Solutions site.
Proposer Workshop
This is the first of two optional events for the proposer community to learn more about this opportunity, ask questions, and make connections. This event is not intended for patients, patient advocates, the media, or general interest audiences.
Proposers' Day
This second hybrid event will provide additional information and clarify processes for potential proposers.
It is recommended that potential performers attend both events to improve opportunities for interaction and teaming.
Event date: September 10, 2026
Registration: Required by September 4, 2026 (12:00 PM ET)
Event location: Hybrid in Arlington, VA
Full Details: See the Special Notice ARPA-H-SN-26-160 on SAM.gov for full event information.
Teaming
ARPA-H anticipates that teaming will be necessary to achieve the goals of this program. Prospective performers are encouraged to form teams with varied technical expertise to submit a research proposal. To facilitate this process, we have created a teaming page where proposers can share their profiles and learn more about other interested parties. Please note that by publishing the teaming profiles list, ARPA-H is not endorsing, sponsoring, or otherwise evaluating the qualifications of the individuals or organizations.
Create or view teaming profiles
You will be prompted to create an account or sign in to the ARPA-H Solutions site to submit or review profiles.
Frequently Asked Questions
Review answers to questions about this opportunity asked by others in the proposer community.
Program Manager
James Coburn, CAPT
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