Dallas City Wire

WASHINGTON – On May 11, a coalition of 18 Texas congressional members led by Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (TX-30) and Chairwoman Kay Granger (TX-12) sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra expressing support in the selection of Texas as ARPA-H’s customer experience hub, with Pegasus Park in Dallas serving as the hub location, with spokes located in Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, East and West Texas, and other numerous partners across the state.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) is a research funding agency that supports transformative biomedical and health breakthroughs – ranging from the molecular to the societal – to provide health solutions for all.

“Thanks to our great North Texas universities, biomedical labs, and research hospitals, Texas' 30th District is swiftly becoming a hub of biomedical innovation and breakthrough research. If ARPA-H is looking for a growing region with a strong pool of medical and scientific talent to launch America’s next medical moonshot, there is no better place than Dallas, Texas,” said Rep. Crockett. "I am thrilled that this bipartisan team of North Texas fighters is pulling together to bring this project home, including the Chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, Kay Granger of Texas' 12th, myself, and over a dozen members from across the Lone Star State. Republican or Democrat, we all know the future of American medical science should start in Texas!”

With its central geographic location, Texas serves as a vital connector across the country. Being the most diverse state in the country, Texas has the varied patient population that ARPA-H seeks to address with its programs. Indeed, as the U.S. Census Bureau recently reported, three of top ten U.S. counties for population growth in 2022 were Collin County, Denton County, and Bexar County—Texas counties which are represented by the cities that are a part of this collaborative effort to bring ARPA-H to Texas. This is on top of the fact that Dallas County is the country’s eighth largest county nationwide.

Based on ARPA-H’s hub and spoke model, the Texas coalition—represented by consortium management firm Advanced Technology International (ATI)—proposes a Texas hub across Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio, with Pegasus Park in Dallas as the hub site and consortium members located across a broad geographic footprint. Some of the coalition’s consortium members include the Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas, BioMedSA, Opportunity Austin, UT Southwestern Medical Center, UT Tyler, UT Tyler Health Science Center, the University of North Texas, Children’s Health, Texas State University, Meadows Mental Health & Policy Institute, UT Arlington, UT Dallas, the Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation, Southern Methodist University, the Dallas Regional Chamber, Texas Woman’s University, Health Wildcatters, and Last Mile Education Fund.

The proposed site at Pegasus Park is particularly well-equipped to support ARPA-H’s success. Pegasus Park is a 26-acre commercial campus dedicated to innovative companies and organizations across science, technology, health care, and social impact. The campus serves as neutral convenor for regional and national stakeholders—including entrepreneurs, strategic business partners, social impact organizations, and investors/accelerators—who are creatively and collaboratively building innovative solutions to drive better health outcomes for all people.

In Texas' 30th District, the Department of Health & Human Services has already invested millions of dollars in 2023 alone, with the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center being a major recipient of funds, ranging from ophthalmology to diabetes research to child development. It only makes sense for further funding for medical infrastructure to be directed to North Texas, to build upon the coming improvements.

More information on the effort can be found here.

The full text of the letter can be found here.

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Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett represents portions of Dallas and Tarrant Counties, with the cities of Dallas, Grand Prairie, DeSoto, Cedar Hill, Lancaster, Duncanville, Glenn Heights, Hutchins, Wilmer, Arlington, Ovilla, and Seagoville.

Original source can be found here.