The National Institutes of Health (NIH), a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the nation’s medical research agency — making important discoveries that improve health and save lives.
The purpose of this NOFO is the rapid and efficient translation of innovative laboratory research findings into therapeutics for use by clinicians to treat visual system diseases or disorders. Multidisciplinary teams of scientists and clinicians must focus on generating preclinical data that will lead to the development of biological, pharmacological, medical device and/or combination product interventions. The ultimate goal of this program is to make new technological, biological and pharmacological resources available to clinicians and their patients. The steps towards this goal should be clearly delineated in a series of milestones that support the development of a therapeutic or device that will lead to an Investigational New Drug (IND) or Investigational Device Exception (IDE) application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and/or testing in a clinical trial.