InformAI lands $1M NIH grant to expand AI organ-matching tool
What's the deal? InformAIDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has received $1 million in grant funding for the second year of a National Institutes of Health (NIH)Dealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → Fast-Track grant. The Houston-based company will use the money to develop TransplantAIDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, its clinical decision-support tool for organ transplants.
What's the endgame? TransplantAI uses patient clinical and imaging data to help transplant centres and procurement organisations match donors and recipients for heart, lung, kidney, and liver transplants. InformAI says it has demonstrated better predictive accuracy on transplant outcomes than existing tools.
Why now? More than 49,000 organ transplants were performed in the US in 2025, while over 100,000 people are still waiting for one. The grant targets organ scarcity, organ discard, and donor-recipient matching.
What's the endgame, in the clinic? The tool aims to give teams real-time reads on waitlist mortality and the odds of a successful transplant. "There is an urgent need for improved, integrated predictive clinical insights in solid organ transplantation," said Dr. Abbas Rana, clinical principal investigator and associate professor of surgery at Baylor College of MedicineDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
InformAI founder and chief executive officer Jim Havelka said the company is "relentlessly focused on delivering high-quality AI clinical solutions, including TransplantAI, which improves organ transplant patient outcomes by optimizing donor-organ matching."
The NIH Fast-Track award speeds funding for Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) projects with strong scientific merit and commercial potential. The research is backed by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood InstituteDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
The signal: At $1 million, the grant sits in the 33rd percentile by amount — modest capital, but non-dilutive government backing that validates AI moving deeper into high-stakes clinical decisions.
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
