Vanderbilt Health gets NIH award of about $8.5 million to lead drug-reaction research consortium
VUMC says the five-year award funds a 13-center network led from Nashville.
NASHVILLE - Vanderbilt Health has received a National Institutes of Health award expected to total about $8.5 million over five years to establish and lead a clinical research consortium on severe drug reactions of the skin, according to a Vanderbilt University Medical Center news article published Oct. 5.
VUMC says the Severe Cutaneous Adverse Reaction (SCAR) Clinical Research Consortium is part of NIH's Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network. It includes 13 centers and 23 investigators, and Elizabeth Phillips, MD, director of the Center for Drug Safety and Immunology at Vanderbilt Health, is principal investigator. The article does not say how much of the award stays at Vanderbilt or how many jobs it supports.
According to VUMC, the consortium's work is organized into three research projects. It expects to hold long-term outcome data and biological samples from more than 500 patients by the end of the funding period, and it plans fellowships and pilot grants for early-career investigators.
VUMC says NIH support comes through three of its institutes and centers, under award number U54AI205728.
Source: Vanderbilt University Medical Center news article, Oct. 5, 2026, https://news.vumc.org/2026/10/05/vanderbilt-health-to-lead-national-consortium-on-life-threatening-drug-reactions-of-the-skin/