25 June 2025 News
Teams of experts and innovators from across the globe are joining forces and combining expertise to accelerate drug discovery for ALS, the most common form of motor neurone disease (MND).
Principally funded by the MND Association, the Longitude Prize on ALS is a new £7.5 million global challenge designed to spark fresh ideas and fast-track MND research using the power of artificial intelligence (AI).
Open for entries from today (25 June) until 3 December 2025 and the prize will initially award 20 teams £100,000 each in early 2026, with one team going on to secure £1 million.
Beyond financial reward, successful applicants will gain access to the largest and most comprehensive collections of ALS patient data of its kind, which combine multiple types of biological information. This helps address a major challenge in MND research, where data is often fragmented and difficult to access due to differing formats and restrictions.
Seeking innovators from across medical research, biotech, techbio, pharmaceuticals and AI, the prize will support the most promising applications which show high potential in both their proposed methodology and team make-up.
“There are many different approaches to drug discovery and development, and as the biggest charity funder of MND research in the UK, it's important we're working on a number of fronts to maximise our chances of finding effective treatments for MND.
“The Longitude Prize on ALS is exciting for a number of reasons – the international scope of the prize, the prospect of new talented people getting involved in MND research for the first time and bringing together existing MND data from different sources across the world to increase the chance of finding something transformative for the MND community.”
Dr Mike Rogers, Director of Research and Innovation at the Association
The launch of the prize was featured on BBC Breakfast this morning and will be marked by an event taking place later on today.
For more information visit als.longitudeprize.org.