MICHAEL J. FOX FOUNDATION FOR PARKINSON’S RESEARCH – 2026

This program seeks to advance therapeutic development through pre-clinical and/or clinical testing of approaches addressing unmet needs of people with Parkinson’s disease (PD). The program is set up to benefit therapeutics with clear potential to prevent, stop or delay disease progression or to reduce the burden of daily symptoms.

Funding will support projects aimed at:

• Pre-clinical: Identifying, validating and/or developing novel pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions through pre-clinical development from early screening to pre-clinical characterization and testing.
• Clinical: Progressing promising interventions with strong pre-clinical packages into/through initial clinical assessment exploring pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, safety/tolerability, or early proof of biology and/or clinical efficacy.

MJFF will prioritize projects with the strongest therapeutic rationale, patient value and pre-clinical to clinical traslation potential.

To apply: only industry and academia-industry partnerships in and outside the U.S. are welcome to apply.

• Pre-proposals can be submitted at any time. They will be reviewed by MJFF within three weeks of submission.
• Once the pre-proposal is accepted, applicants will be invited to submit a full proposal through one of the five review cycles.

FUNDING SCHEDULE FOR 2026 (for full proposals)

1st deadline: October 9, 2025

2nd deadline: December 11, 2025

3rd deadline: February 22, 2026

4th deadline: April 23, 2026

5th deadline: June 25, 2026

Duration:

• 1 to 2 years for pre-clinical programs
• 2 to 3 years for clinical programs

Budget: From USD 250.000 for smaller, targeted programs to upwards of USD 2.000.000 for larger, multi-stage pre-clinical and/or clinical programs.