Animal and Veterinary Innovation Centers (AVIC)
In 2024, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine established the Animal and Veterinary Innovation Centers (AVIC) as part of its ongoing commitment to encourage development of innovative products to better support animal health and veterinary interventions. The AVIC furthers the principles outlined in the FDA’s Animal and Veterinary Innovation Agenda (AVIA), which communicated the agency’s plans to address critical unmet needs impacting animal and human health.
In FY 2026, the FDA intends to partner with public and/or private academic research institutions through a competitive cooperative agreement process, to establish AVICs and address critical animal, human or environmental health needs in one or more of the following priority areas:
Aquaculture
- Targeted research to support aquaculture drug approvals, especially when coordinated with external partnerships with groups like veterinary associations, species associations, and governmental entities aimed at addressing barriers to animal drug availability and enhancing domestic food production and security. This could include research projects that are likely to result in new product availability for aquaculture and address high priority needs such as:
- Residue depletion profiles in freshwater and saltwater finfish
- Total residue and metabolism studies
- Target animal safety
- Targeted research on aquaculture environments to support drug development, reviews, and approvals. Approaches that are encouraged include:
- Methods for gathering and compiling information on management practices and facility characteristics for ornamental and food species
- Approach to generate environmental effects, fate, and physiochemical data for aquaculture drugs
- Approaches for developing tools, including new alternative methods (NAM) to support environmental exposure assessments for aquaculture drugs
Ruminants
- Regulatory science or targeted research that advances the development of high priority animal drugs for minor ruminant species (e.g., sheep, goats, bison), conducted in conjunction with establishing external partnerships aimed to overcome barriers to development and approval for these drugs.
Human Food Safety for Minor Species
- Advancing human food safety regulatory science for animal drugs in food-producing minor species and minor uses in major food-producing species. The research aims should support new regulatory scientific approaches to meet human food safety standards and fill critical gaps needed to support human food safety assessments, particularly when in partnerships with veterinary medical groups, governmental entities, and species associations. Including but not limited to:
- Approaches to speed up or modernize residue method development, qualification, and validation.
- Approaches or methods to bridge data between different animal species.
- Approaches to increase understanding of, or model drug metabolism and depletion in minor food-producing species.
Multi-Year Research on Antimicrobial Use/Stewardship
- To increase understanding of antimicrobial use practices and research that produces evidence that can be used by veterinarians for decision making, consistent with FDA policies on the judicious use and veterinary oversight of medically important antimicrobials. Models that involve partners, such as veterinary associations, state officials, and agricultural organizations and deploy novel approaches to data collection (e.g., data trusts, data use agreements) while ensuring data confidentiality and protection are encouraged. Proposals that include antimicrobial use database repositories or dashboards are also encouraged. Proposals should address one or more of the following:
- Support long-term antimicrobial use data collection efforts in the United States, including advancement of public-private partnership frameworks and development of a national data repository or dashboard to securely store, analyze, and report antimicrobial use data trends across multiple species or veterinary sectors.
- Summarize antimicrobial use data using standardized formats appropriate to the studied population, sector, or subsector, including trend analyses and contextual information
- Disseminate data summaries and resources through peer-reviewed literature, public-facing dashboards, or other appropriate mechanisms.
- Conduct research that results in data and publications that can make scientific information available for veterinarians to make judicious antimicrobial use decisions in real-world settings.
The Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) is available at: https://grants.gov/search-results-detail/355044. All funding is subject to the availability of funds.
For specific questions related to AVIC, please direct your response by email to AVIC@fda.hhs.gov.