Longitude Prize on ALS launched to award £7.5m to AI solutions

A £7.5 million global challenge prize has launched to incentivise AI-based approaches to transform drug discovery for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

ALS is a form of motor neurone disease (MND) that damages the nerves in the brain and spinal cord, leading to severe muscle degeneration which eventually effects the muscles used to swallow food, drink and breathe.

The Longitude Prize on ALS will initially reward 20 of the most promising entrants with ‘discovery awards’ of £100,000 each to work on drug discovery for ALS.

Tanya Curry, chief executive at the MND Association, said: “Empowering some of the brightest minds across science and technology to come together, the Longitude Prize on ALS will initiate transformative change for people living with motor neurone disease.

“We are investing as a principal funder as enabling such collaborations, as well as the level of unprecedented data we’re working to unlock, marks the start of a significant milestone for drug discovery, the MND Association and wider MND community in how we understand and consequently tackle the disease.”

Teams will be judged on the potential for their approach to identify and validate drug targets driving understanding of the diseases and supporting onward translation into drug discovery.

Challenge Works will support the top 20 applications which show high potential in both their proposed methodology and team make-up, bringing together expertise from across multiple disciplines including ALS research and computational biology.

Successful applicants will also gain access to the large and comprehensive collections of ALS patient data, combining multiple types of biological information and brought together for the prize.

Professor Ammar Al-Chalabi, director of the UK MND Research Institute, said: “Innovative approaches to drug discovery could be game changing in terms of how we understand ALS.

“Using AI-led innovation to uncover specific molecules in the body linked to the disease that can be targeted with a drug is the first step to discovering effective treatments.

“The opportunity the Longitude Prize on ALS presents is huge.”

After the initial discovery awards have been granted, 10 teams will progress to a second stage, receiving a further £200,000 in 2027 to build the evidence base for their proposed therapeutic targets in silico and in the lab.

In 2028, five teams will then receive £500,000 to undertake validation of the highest potential identified targets in the wet lab.

The winning team will be announced in early 2031 and will be awarded £1 million for identifying the target with the strongest evidence of therapeutic potential.

The entry window is open until 3 December 2025, with the 20 successful entrants expected to be named in the first half of 2026.