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DEPARTMENT OF WAR - CONGRESSIONALLY DIRECTED MEDICAL RESEARCH PROGRAMS
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Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

NEWS RELEASE

Released: February 13, 2026

Defense Health Agency Research and Development
Medical Research and Development Command
Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Research Program
Anticipated Funding Opportunities for Fiscal Year 2026

The FY26 Defense Appropriations Act provides funding for the ALSRP to support innovative, high-impact research with clinical relevance that will improve outcomes and find cures for people with ALS. As part of the DHA R&D-MRDC, the CDMRP is the program office managing these anticipated FY26 funding opportunities.

The ALSRP provides the information in this pre-announcement to allow investigators time to plan and develop ideas for submission to the anticipated FY26 funding opportunities. Investigators should not construe this pre-announcement as an obligation or promise by the government. The CDMRP will post FY26 ALSRP funding opportunity announcements on the Grants.gov website. Once released, the funding opportunity announcements will include pre-application and application deadlines.

Award Mechanism Eligibility Key Mechanism Elements Funding
Clinical Outcomes and Biomarkers Award Independent investigators at all academic levels, or equivalent.
  • Supports the development and/or validation of clinical outcomes or biomarkers to improve clinical trials in ALS.
    • Clinical outcome studies may include clinician-, observer-, or patient-reported, and/or performance outcome measures for ALS.
    • Clinical biomarkers should be specific for ALS; studies may include, but are not limited to, susceptibility/risk, diagnostic, monitoring, prognostic, predictive, response or safety biomarkers.
  • Applications should include strong data sharing plans.
  • Applications cannot support interventional clinical trials. However, applications may propose non-interventional studies prospectively collecting biospecimens and/or data, including parallel/add-on to existing trials.
  • Pre-applications and applications must include a community collaborator, e.g., patient/care partner, community-based organization consultant, who will provide advice and consultation during study design and throughout study planning and implementation.
  • The ALSRP requires submission of a preproposal; application submission by invitation only.
  • Maximum period of performance is 3 years
  • Maximum allowable funding is $1.0 million for total costs*
Pilot Clinical Trial Award Independent investigators at all academic levels, or equivalent.
  • Supports the rapid implementation of early-stage clinical trials with potential to significantly impact treatment or symptom management of ALS.
  • Applications must include a clinical trial(s) that addresses more than just safety of the intervention. Projects should also be designed to assess therapeutic efficacy, biological effects and/or clinical outcomes, and may range from phase 1 to small-scale phase 2 trials.
  • Applications should include research projects that aim to de-risk and inform the design of more advanced trials.
  • Applications proposing a therapeutic intervention, e.g., drug, biologic and/or device, must incorporate biomarkers specific to the intervention into the trial design.
  • Pre-applications and applications must include a community collaborator, e.g., patient/care partner, community-based organization consultant, who will provide advice and consultation during study design and throughout study planning and implementation.
  • The ALSRP requires submission of a preproposal; application submission by invitation only.
  • Maximum period of performance is 3 years
  • Maximum allowable funding is $2.8 million for total costs*
Therapeutic Development Award Independent investigators at all academic levels, or equivalent.
  • Supports secondary preclinical validation and/or Investigational New Drug-enabling studies of therapeutics for ALS.
  • Applications must include research with the lead compound(s) in hand and proof-of-concept efficacy data in at least one appropriate preclinical model system of ALS.
  • Applications require preliminary data, including therapeutic efficacy data in at least one relevant preclinical ALS model system.
  • Mechanism-specific predictive/cohort-selective, target engagement, and pharmacodynamic biomarker development, in parallel to the main therapeutic effort, is a critical component of the application. For studies using or developing biomarkers with known biological mechanisms of action, applications must describe how the existing biomarkers will improve trial design, patient selection and efficiency or interpretation of the proposed ALS therapeutic approach.
  • The ALSRP requires submission of a preproposal; application submission by invitation only.
  • Maximum period of performance is 3 years
  • Maximum allowable funding of $2.0M for total costs*
Therapeutic Idea Award Independent investigators at all academic levels, or equivalent.
  • Supports new, innovative, high-risk, high-gain hypothesis-driven research aimed at ALS drug or therapy discovery.
  • Applications do not require preliminary data, however, rationale and experimental feasibility are important.
  • Applications focusing primarily on ALS pathophysiology without development of a therapy or device will not be considered.
  • Applications must include rational biomarker(s) development to measure biological effects of the study compound or modality for eventual clinical trials.
  • Applications may propose research specific for an ALS subtype and do not have to broadly apply to all patients.
  • The ALSRP requires submission of a preproposal; application submission by invitation only.
  • Maximum period of performance is 2 years
  • Maximum allowable funding is $840,000 for total costs*
*Total costs include direct and indirect costs.

Before full application submission, the CDMRP requires submission of a pre-application through the electronic Biomedical Research Application Portal, eBRAP, prior to the pre-application deadline. All applications must conform to the final funding opportunity announcements available for downloading from Grants.gov. To obtain a listing of all CDMRP funding opportunities on the Grants.gov website, perform a basic search using CFDA number 12.420.

To receive email notifications upon release of funding opportunity announcements, subscribe to program-specific news and updates under "Email Subscriptions" on the eBRAP homepage. For more information about the ALSRP or other CDMRP-administered programs, please visit the CDMRP website.

Point of Contact:
CDMRP Public Affairs
301-619-7071
dha.detrick.cdmrp.mbx.public-affairs@health.mil


Last updated Tuesday, February 17, 2026