The overall goal of The Step Up for SUD initiative is to advance fundamental discoveries into medicines to treat substance use disorders (SUD) for the benefit of society.
The purpose of this funding opportunity is to enhance and accelerate research on drug targets for SUD aiming to expand the
range of targets and mechanisms in development for SUD therapies.
The initiative will provide both funding and the in-kind access to biomedical product development experts.
It will be administered as unique, short-term and nimble funding opportunity to support the confirmatory research in robust drug target validation/invalidation to allow for early decision to either proceed to a next step or stop the projects.
At this point, only research projects on potential drug/biologic therapeutics, not diagnostics or devices, will be supported.