HEAL Initiative: Interdisciplinary Team Science to Uncover the Mechanisms of Pain Relief by Medical Devices (RM1 Clinical Trial Optional) | RFA NS 23 028

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA NS 23 028

The HEAL Initiative: Interdisciplinary Team Science to Uncover the Mechanisms of Pain Relief by Medical Devices (RM1 Clinical Trial Optional) is an NIH funding opportunity (RFA-NS-23-028) focused on addressing chronic pain with non-opioid solutions. It is grounded in the public health reality that more than 25 million Americans live with daily chronic pain, and that long-term reliance on opioid prescribing has not reliably improved function while carrying a high risk of misuse, addiction, and overdose. Within the broader NIH HEAL Initiative, this program is aimed at accelerating safer, effective pain treatment options that have little or no addiction liability, specifically by improving the scientific understanding of how medical devices relieve pain.

The core purpose of the award is to support interdisciplinary, highly collaborative research teams led by multiple PDs/PIs. Rather than funding isolated projects, this RM1 mechanism is structured around team science: applicants are expected to form integrated groups whose combined expertise makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts. The work should investigate mechanisms of action underlying pain relief produced by medical devices, with an emphasis on generating knowledge that can directly optimize therapeutic outcomes for technologies that are already FDA approved or FDA cleared. In other words, the program is not primarily about inventing brand-new devices from scratch; it is about uncovering how existing device-based therapies produce analgesia and using that insight to improve performance, targeting, patient selection, dosing or stimulation parameters, durability of response, and overall real-world effectiveness.

NIH signals that funded teams should pursue goals that require substantial synergy and sustained collaboration, and that they should leverage multi-disciplinary methods to create new principles and approaches for experimentation, analysis, and interpretation. Practically, that means reviewers will be looking for research plans that combine complementary strengths across relevant domains, such as clinical pain medicine, neuroscience, biomedical engineering, computational modeling and data science, physiology, psychophysics, rehabilitation science, imaging, and biostatistics, among others. The emphasis on new methods and interpretive frameworks also implies that teams are encouraged to go beyond routine assessments of efficacy and instead produce deeper mechanistic insights that can explain why a device works, for whom it works best, and under what conditions it fails or produces variable responses.

Clinical trials are optional under this announcement, which gives teams flexibility to propose mechanistic studies that may be preclinical, translational, clinical, or a blend, as long as the work stays anchored to understanding device-mediated pain relief and leads to actionable optimization of approved or cleared technologies. The broader expectation is that the research will produce major advances in the field, meaning high-impact mechanistic discoveries, validated biomarkers or endpoints, improved parameterization strategies, or other outputs that can meaningfully move device-based pain management forward and reduce reliance on opioids.

The opportunity is offered as a discretionary NIH grant with an award ceiling listed at $1,500,000. The program is associated with multiple CFDA numbers (including 93.121, 93.213, 93.273, 93.279, 93.393, 93.846, 93.847, 93.853, 93.865, 93.866, 93.867), reflecting participation or relevance across several NIH institutes and centers. The original closing date provided is June 9, 2025, and the FOA record indicates it was created on April 27, 2023.

Eligibility is broad and includes many types of U.S.-based organizations and governmental entities. Eligible applicants include state, county, and city or township governments; special district governments; independent school districts; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education; private institutions of higher education; federally recognized Native American tribal governments; tribal organizations that are not federally recognized; public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; nonprofits with or without 501(c)(3) status (outside of higher education); for-profit organizations other than small businesses; and small businesses. The FOA explicitly highlights additional eligible applicant categories such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-serving institutions, Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs), Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, and Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs), as well as faith-based or community-based organizations, eligible federal agencies, regional organizations, and U.S. territories or possessions. At the same time, non-domestic (non-U.S.) entities and foreign institutions are not eligible to apply, and non-domestic components of U.S. organizations are not eligible to apply. However, foreign components, as NIH defines them in the NIH Grants Policy Statement, are allowed, which typically means a U.S. applicant organization may include certain foreign collaborations or activities when well-justified and compliant with NIH policy.

Overall, this FOA is best understood as a team-based mechanistic science program meant to strengthen the evidence base behind device-based pain therapies, translate mechanistic understanding into improved clinical outcomes, and contribute to the HEAL Initiative goal of expanding effective pain treatment options that avoid the addiction risks associated with opioids.

• The National Institutes of Health in the education, food and nutrition, health, income security and social services sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "HEAL Initiative: Interdisciplinary Team Science to Uncover the Mechanisms of Pain Relief by Medical Devices (RM1 Clinical Trial Optional)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.121, 93.213, 93.273, 93.279, 93.393, 93.846, 93.847, 93.853, 93.865, 93.866, 93.867.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2023-04-27.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2025-06-09. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $1,500,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, For-profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses, Others.

Apply for RFA NS 23 028

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