What do you mean by less than 40? If your score is between 30% and 39%, the chance to be funded is very slim. There are two scenarios here: If you applied for an RFA, you may have a chance as the selection is made by the rank of impact scores among all the applications to the particular RFA (瘸子里面选将军). If you applied for a PA, it is almost out as the decision is made by payline . The payline is determined by a percentile. If the percentile of an application is larger than 10%, the application could not get funded at this current NIH climate. However, if this is your initial submission, you may read the summary statement of review and revise and resubmit it. Give the financial situation at the NIH, more than half of applications could not get a score. To be honest, a score between 30-39 is still encouraging and promising if it is your first submission. Good luck.
Read the instruction for R01. It is an automatic process for grants below certain percentile (30-40%). If it is your first submission, congratulation . Read the criticism carefully and respond to everyone of them by evidences and new experiments, you should get a better score next time and hopefully get funded.