The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) announced in January 2026 a new program called ADVOCATE — Agentic AI-Enabled CardioVascular CAre TransfOrmation — aimed at funding the development of the first FDA-authorized autonomous AI system for managing advanced cardiovascular disease around the clock.

The program targets two primary conditions: heart failure and cardiovascular disease in patients who have had a myocardial infarction. ARPA-H intends these AI agents to provide patients with personalised diet and exercise guidance, assist with care navigation including appointment scheduling, and — where authorised — autonomously write or modify prescriptions.

Three technical areas: ADVOCATE solicits proposals across three distinct technical areas:

  1. TA-1 — Patient-facing clinical AI agent: Development of an AI agent capable of clinical reasoning, care navigation, and autonomous medical actions for individual cardiovascular patients.
  2. TA-2 — Supervisory oversight agent: A separate AI system that monitors deployed clinical agents for continued accuracy and patient safety.
  3. TA-3 — Health system integration: Recruitment and partnership with health systems for real-world design, development, and deployment.

Projected savings: ARPA-H states that if ADVOCATE technologies are successfully developed and widely adopted, the program could save $55 billion annually in U.S. healthcare costs. This is a conditional program-level projection, not a current or guaranteed figure.

Regulatory pathway: The program targets FDA authorisation on an approximately three-year timeline. The specific FDA pathway has not been publicly specified.

Program status as of June 15, 2026: No awardees have been publicly announced and no specific award dollar amounts have been disclosed. The program was in the proposal solicitation phase at announcement.