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Expanding Access to Immunology Clinical Trials QuickFire Challenge

Johnson & Johnson

For innovation to transform health outcomes for people around the world, new treatments, devices, and technologies must be accessible, inclusive, and designed with the needs of patients and communities in mind. However, many patient populations are less represented in clinical trials, limiting the broader applicability of the research.1

Barriers to trial participation are multifaceted and can include restrictive or noninclusive study design, logistical burdens, and a lack of scalable approaches to support investigator and site readiness in resource-limited communities.2 Expanding local research capability through innovative solutions may help reduce barriers to participation, including by making clinical trials closer to where patients live.

To help patients around the world living with immune diseases participate in clinical research, Johnson & Johnson launched the Expanding Access to Immunology Clinical Trials QuickFire Challenge.

Innovators are invited to submit ideas for tools, platforms, or technologies with the goal to improve outreach, enrollment, and retention of participants in clinical trials focused on immune diseases in resource-limited communities. The innovators with the most promising potential solutions aligned to this QuickFire Challenge will have the opportunity to receive award funding from a total pool of up to $350,000.*

* Subject to terms and conditions of applicable QuickFire Challenge and execution of an award agreement.

1 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Policy and Global Affairs; Committee on Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine; Committee on Improving the Representation of Women and Underrepresented Minorities in Clinical Trials and Research; Bibbins-Domingo K, Helman A, editors. Improving Representation in Clinical Trials and Research: Building Research Equity for Women and Underrepresented Groups. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2022 May 17. 4, Barriers to Representation of Underrepresented and Excluded Populations in Clinical Research. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK584407/.

2 Reopell L, Nolan TS, Gray DM 2nd, et al. Community engagement and clinical trial diversity: Navigating barriers and co-designing solutions-A report from the "Health Equity through Diversity" seminar series. PLoS One. 2023 Feb 16;18(2):e0281940. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0281940. PMID: 36795792; PMCID: PMC9934412.

Why this challenge matters to us

At Johnson & Johnson, we strive to support innovations with the potential to advance representative research and put the needs of patients first, while helping to ensure that medical discoveries are accessible to patients who need them.

Criteria

Potential solutions will be evaluated by a panel of reviewers and judges on their ability to meet the following criteria:

Strategic alignment with QuickFire Challenge areas of interest
Feasibility of the idea or methodology
Patient and healthcare provider user experience of proposed idea
Applicability on a global scale
Identification of key resources and a plan to further the idea
Team quality and capabilities

Awards

The innovators with the most promising potential solutions aligned to this QuickFire Challenge will have the opportunity to receive award funding from a total pool of up to $350,000.*

*Subject to terms and conditions of applicable QuickFire Challenge and execution of an award agreement.

Timeline

July 30, 2026

Launch

September 18, 2026

Application Deadline

December 2026

Award Announcement

AI Based Application Success Predictor

1. Strong alignment with the specific J&J funding opportunity ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is the most important predictor.

J&J funding is highly program-specific. A successful application should directly match:

The published RFP or challenge
The therapeutic area
The stated educational or scientific gap
The target healthcare population
The specific objectives of the program

For example, J&J's current educational RFPs specify particular disease areas and learning needs rather than accepting unrestricted research proposals.

2. Addressing a significant unmet healthcare need ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Strong proposals demonstrate a clear problem that needs to be solved, such as:

Unmet clinical needs
Treatment gaps
Diagnostic challenges
Patient access problems
Healthcare disparities
Inefficient clinical workflows
Gaps in healthcare-professional knowledge

The stronger and more clearly documented the unmet need, the more compelling the proposal.

3. Innovation and differentiation ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Innovation is particularly important for J&J's technology and entrepreneurship programs.

Competitive projects may involve:

Artificial intelligence
Digital health
Robotics
Surgical technology
Medical devices
Novel therapeutics
Data-driven healthcare
New clinical workflows

The Polyphonic AI Fund for Surgery QuickFire Challenge, for example, is specifically designed to accelerate next-generation AI solutions for surgery.

4. Potential for measurable patient or healthcare impact ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Strong applications clearly explain how the project could:

Improve patient outcomes
Increase treatment quality
Improve diagnosis
Reduce complications
Improve healthcare delivery
Increase access to care
Improve clinician performance

J&J's current corporate strategy emphasizes addressing complex health challenges through medicines and medical technologies.

5. Scientific/clinical credibility and evidence ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Competitive proposals should provide:

Strong evidence supporting the intervention
Relevant clinical or scientific literature
Preliminary data where appropriate
Appropriate methodology
Credible outcome measures

For educational grants, the proposal should clearly establish the identified educational gap, proposed intervention, target audience, and expected outcomes.

6. Clear measurable outcomes ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is particularly important for J&J educational and implementation grants.

Successful proposals should specify measurable outcomes such as:

Number of healthcare professionals reached
Knowledge improvement
Competence or confidence changes
Changes in clinical practice
Adoption of new workflows
Patient-care improvements
System-level outcomes

For example, a current J&J implementation-science RFP requires reporting on educational reach, learner outcomes, clinician behavior/practice changes, and system/process outcomes.

7. Strong implementation and scalability ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

J&J favors solutions that can move beyond a small pilot.

Competitive projects demonstrate:

Practical implementation
Scalability
Replicability
Healthcare-system integration
Potential for broader adoption
Sustainability after funding

This is especially relevant to implementation-science and technology programs.

8. Strong multidisciplinary collaboration ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

Competitive teams may include:

Physicians
Nurses
Pharmacists
Researchers
Engineers
Data scientists
Health-system leaders
Patient representatives
Technology developers

J&J Innovation explicitly works with external innovators and provides resources and collaboration opportunities through its innovation ecosystem.

9. Appropriate target audience and reach ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

For medical education grants, the application should clearly identify:

Target healthcare professionals
Their knowledge or practice gap
Why the audience needs the intervention
Expected number of participants
Geographic or institutional reach

J&J's educational grants can support activities delivered through live, virtual, and healthcare-team engagement formats.

10. Feasible budget, timeline, and compliance ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

Successful proposals should have:

Realistic budgets
Appropriate project duration
Clear milestones
Complete documentation
Compliance with the RFP
Appropriate institutional eligibility

For example, J&J's 2026 implementation-science RFP specifies a maximum award of $275,000, a project duration of up to 18 months, and restrictions on certain expenses.

Specialties

Immunology

Pharmaceuticals

Others

Eligibility Requirements

What we’re looking for

Specific areas of interest include:

Reimagining trial design through data, models, and participant-centered approaches, including:
- Inclusive eligibility modeling
  - AI/ML-enabled redesign of inclusion/exclusion criteria to reduce unnecessary barriers
  - Model-informed simulations to predict feasibility, efficacy, and inclusion with a specific focus on resource-limited communities
- Standardized, granular patient characterization
  - Harmonized phenotyping and endotyping across assets
  - Capture of site- and patient-level baseline data (comorbidities, prior therapies, disease heterogeneity) to enable broader eligibility and subgroup-specific insights
- Participant-centered trial experiences
  - Integration of lived experience and participant perspectives into trial design and execution
  - Approaches to improve relevance, trust, awareness, retention, and long-term engagement
Building the infrastructure, insights, and capabilities to operationalize inclusion at scale, including:
- Benchmarks and metrics for inclusive trials
  - Novel tools and dashboards to measure outreach effectiveness, enrollment, retention, and site readiness
  - Comparable benchmarks across geographies and populations
- Participant insights and real-world data (RWD)
  - Ethically sourced participant insights databases and RWD to inform outreach, trial design, and engagement strategies in immune-mediated diseases
- Education, communication, and site enablement
  - Visualization and imaging technologies to improve understanding of immune-mediated disease processes for participants and investigators
  - Scalable training models for investigators and research staff in resource-limited communities to expand access and strengthen local trial capacity

Specific disease areas of interest include: Inflammatory bowel disease (ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease), rheumatology diseases (rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus and Sjogren's syndrome (SjD)), dermatology diseases (psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, and hidradenitis suppurativa), maternal-fetal autoantibody diseases (Hemolytic Disease of the Newborn and Fetal and Neonatal Alloimmune Thrombocytopenia (FNAIT)) and respiratory diseases (asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)).

Sponsor Details

Sponsor Institute/Organizations: Johnson & Johnson

Sponsor Type: Corporate/Non-Profit

Address: 1 Johnson & Johnson Plaza, New Brunswick, NJ 08933

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