Objective:
Our flagship funding initiative accelerates Parkinson’s disease therapy development by prioritizing opportunities where our funding supports generation of meaningful evidence informing critical development milestones.
Fast Facts
- Funding to accelerate pre-clinical and clinical development of disease-modifying or symptomatic interventions for Parkinson’s disease
- Program additionally supports integration and analysis of decision-informing biomarker tools
- Funding ranges of $1M-$5M for 2-3 years contingent on program scope and development stage
- Open to industry and academic + industry partnerships to foster clearer paths to commercialization; eligibility exemptions for academic-led projects in certain cases (access Overview document in sidebar for details)
- Pre-proposals accepted on a rolling basis for rapid initial exchange with MJFF on proposed therapeutic ideas
- Multiple annual review cycles for applicants invited to submit a full proposal
- Office hours are available to address questions and partnerships after invite to the full proposal round
Program Exclusions
As the primary focus of TPP is to advance new therapeutic interventions, MJFF will NOT consider proposal submissions to this program that focus on the following areas:
- Early-stage target discovery (e.g., genomic/transcriptomic analyses)
- Validation studies using tool compounds or manipulation methods that lack a clear and viable path to therapeutic development
- Standalone biomarker discovery or therapy platform development without an existing application to a specific PD-relevant therapeutic program
- Simple reformulation of an approved therapy without strong rationale for addressing a current unmet patient need
- Evaluation of dietary and other nutritional supplements given challenges in defining mechanism, establishing interpretable biomarker strategies and limited regulatory pathway clarity which are key pillars of this funding program
- Natural history studies or similar exploratory clinical data collection
Deadlines and Review Schedules
The program will be divided into two stages with the goal of offering applicants frequent opportunities to propose novel and promising PD therapeutics:
- Applicants may submit a pre-proposal application at any time. Pre-proposals will be reviewed by MJFF within three weeks of submission. This stage is your first and best opportunity to determine if MJFF is the right partner for you.
- Applicants whose pre-proposal is selected for further consideration will be invited to submit a full proposal through one of the five review cycles (full proposal due dates in the sidebar). MJFF staff will work with applicants to define the most flexible and fastest option for review. Invited applicants will have the opportunity to consult with MJFF on proposal development. Funding decisions will be communicated within three months of full proposal submission.
For questions about the application process or project suitability for this call for applications, please email grants@michaeljfox.org.
Please note that MJFF has an Open Science Policy which governs research outputs (such as preprints, journal articles, data, code, and software) resulting from MJFF-funded work. The Open Science Policy applies to this funding program and includes specific rules, timing, and format for the return of those research outputs and requires them to be shared openly, to be free to access, and with persistent identifiers. Please contact openscience@michaeljfox.org for questions about the Open Science Policy.