HHS / NIH — SBIR/STTR competition data
Data through FY2025
4,121 proposals → 654 awards. SBA SBIR/STTR Annual Report FY2022 (latest published edition; SBA lags ~2 years).
1,390 proposals → 439 awards (same source).
2022 Phase I cohort: 313 of 868 won a linked Phase II within 3 years.
31% to first-time winners · n=1,125 awards.
Awards and typical amounts
| FY | Awards | Phase I | Phase II | Median Phase I | Median Phase II |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 1,347 | 867 | 480 | $300k | $1.8M |
| 2022 | 1,380 | 868 | 512 | $300k | $1.9M |
| 2023 | 1,393 | 856 | 537 | $303k | $2M |
| 2024 | 1,225 | 732 | 493 | $311k | $2M |
| 2025 | 1,125 | 662 | 463 | $314k | $1M |
Phase I→II conversion by cohort
| Phase I cohort | Phase I awards | Linked Phase II | Conversion | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 662 | 29 | 4% | provisional — cohort still inside the 3-year window |
| 2024 | 732 | 119 | 16% | provisional — cohort still inside the 3-year window |
| 2023 | 856 | 244 | 28% | provisional — cohort still inside the 3-year window |
| 2022 | 868 | 313 | 36% | |
| 2021 | 867 | 326 | 38% | |
| 2020 | 856 | 325 | 38% | |
| 2019 | 1,158 | 461 | 40% | |
| 2018 | 1,152 | 482 | 42% |
First-timers vs incumbents (Phase I only)
| FY | Phase I awards | First-time winners | 1–4 prior | 5+ prior |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 662 | 44% | 30% | 25% |
| 2024 | 732 | 42% | 31% | 27% |
| 2023 | 856 | 37% | 34% | 29% |
| 2022 | 868 | 43% | 31% | 25% |
| 2021 | 867 | 42% | 28% | 30% |
Most-awarded firms (last 5 FYs)
| Company | Awards | Total obligations |
|---|---|---|
| EPICYPHER, INC. | 29 | $50.3M |
| Minnesota HealthSolutions Corporation | 27 | $23.9M |
| ELECTRONIC BIOSCIENCES, INC. | 24 | $10.6M |
| PHYSICAL SCIENCES INC. | 21 | $18.1M |
| MUCOMMUNE, LLC | 20 | $15.7M |
| OREGON RESEARCH BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION STRATEGIES, INC. | 19 | $13.8M |
| CFD Research Corporation | 18 | $11.7M |
| BAEBIES, INC. | 17 | $16.1M |
| BIOSENSICS LLC | 17 | $24.8M |
| Biotherapeutics, Inc. | 16 | $7.5M |
Search HHS / NIH awards by topic code →
Sourced vs computed: Phase I/II selection rates (applications → awards) come from the SBA's SBIR/STTR Annual Report — FY2022 is the latest published edition, and SBA itself calls the rates estimates because proposal cohorts span fiscal years. Phase I→II conversion and first-timer shares are computed by us from sbir.gov's public award records. Linked by firm + agency + topic (suffix-tolerant for DOE's phase renumbering) with a title-similarity fallback for NSF; ~90% of links match on topic, ~5% ambiguity.
What nobody publishes: per-topic application counts are published by no one — not the agencies, and not the $500–$42,000-a-year intelligence platforms either; the data simply isn't public. Any per-topic number on this site is award-side only (who won, how often winners repeat), never your odds of selection.
Sources: sbir.gov award data · SBA FY22 Annual Report. Free to use; verify anything critical against the originals.