{"entity":{"id":"cdmrp-rcrp","kind":"institution","name":"Rare Cancers Research Program (CDMRP)","aka":["RCRP","DoD Rare Cancers Research Program"],"tldr":"The US defense department's research fund for rare cancers, those affecting six or fewer people in 100,000 a year, created by Congress in 2020. It pays for lab models, new and repurposed treatments, and shared tissue banks, registries and databases for cancers too uncommon to study one centre at a time.","summary":"Congress established the Rare Cancers Research Program in the FY20 Department of Defense appropriation with $7.5 million. After a stakeholders meeting on 17 April 2020 the CDMRP adopted the definition of a rare cancer as an incidence of six or fewer cases per 100,000 people per year. The page cites the American Cancer Society's estimate that about one in five US cancers is rare, and states that 67 per cent of the over 60 cancers that disproportionately affect people who have served in the military are rare.\n\nThe programme focuses on disease-defining biology; rare-tumour models that support clinical trial readiness; new therapeutic strategies including drug repurposing; artificial intelligence and machine learning for discovery and trial readiness; and platforms such as clinically annotated tissue repositories, central databanks, registries with a common data structure, omics databases and natural-history studies. The page lists $95 million in appropriations for FY20 to FY25 and $17.5 million for FY26, and 162 awards in FY21 to FY24.","asOf":"2026-11-04","links":[{"label":"Rare Cancers Research Program","url":"https://cdmrp.health.mil/rcrp/default"}],"tags":["research-funding"],"related":[],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":["cdmrp"],"pathways":[],"terms":["rare-cancers"],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":["b-rare-cancers","b-preclinical-models","b-generic-repurposing"],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":["Appropriation totals, award counts and the fiscal-year ranges are the programme page's own figures, read on 4 November 2026; the ranges differ between programmes because each page states its own (some run to FY24, some to FY25), and they are reproduced as given rather than summed or extended."],"city":"Fort Detrick, MD","country":"US","lat":39.437,"lng":-77.427,"institutionType":"government","website":"https://cdmrp.health.mil/rcrp/default","programs":["Biology","Preclinical rare-tumour models","Therapy, including repurposing","AI and machine-learning models","Platform development: tissue repositories, registries, databanks"]},"route":"/institutions/cdmrp-rcrp/","neighbours":{"institution":[{"id":"cdmrp","kind":"institution","name":"Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP)","route":"/institutions/cdmrp/"},{"id":"rare-cancer-research-foundation","kind":"institution","name":"Rare Cancer Research Foundation","route":"/institutions/rare-cancer-research-foundation/"}],"term":[{"id":"rare-cancers","kind":"term","name":"Rare cancers","route":"/terms/rare-cancers/"}],"bottleneck":[{"id":"b-preclinical-models","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Lab models that fail to predict what happens in patients","route":"/bottlenecks/b-preclinical-models/"},{"id":"b-generic-repurposing","kind":"bottleneck","name":"No incentive to repurpose cheap drugs","route":"/bottlenecks/b-generic-repurposing/"},{"id":"b-rare-cancers","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Rare and paediatric cancers without markets","route":"/bottlenecks/b-rare-cancers/"}]}}