Prize4Life - ALS Biomarker Prize

ALS Biomarker Prize

The Biomarker Prize was Prize4Life’s first prize challenge, launched in November 2006. Currently, there is no uniformly reliable way of tracking disease progression. As such, clinical trials for ALS are long and expensive, often prohibitively so. Prize4Life sought to reduce the time and cost needed to conduct these clinical trials, thereby allowing for speedier testing of potential therapeutics and an accelerated push toward treatments and a cure for ALS. The first researcher to meet all of the specified criteria of the prize would win US$1 million.

In May 2007, with a $75,000 donation from the Kraft family, Prize4Life awarded five Thought Prizes of $15,000 each to five teams who proposed the best theoretical solutions for discovering a biomarker for ALS. After awarding these Thought Prizes, the organization focused on the second track of the ALS Biomarker Prize: a $1 million award for the actual discovery of an ALS biomarker.

Prize4Life announced the awarding of the Biomarker Prize to Dr. Seward Rutkove on February 3, 2011 for his development of a tool to track the progression of the disease. This biomarker has the potential to reduce the cost of Phase II clinical trials by more than 50% and remove one of the primary obstacles to industry investment in potential ALS therapies.

Prize4Life pioneered the application of the incentive prize model to the biomedical field. The first million-dollar prize was launched via InnoCentive in 2006. Five years later, the process has culminated in the identification of a biomarker, but the ripple effect of the challenge can be seen far beyond the work of Dr. Rutkove. The prize catalyzed radically new ideas from new thinkers—in 2007, as part of the first tier of the challenge, Prize4Life awarded five ‘thought’ prizes to encourage promising concepts. A plant biologist and a dermatologist who applied a method used in the cosmetic industry were among those attracted to propose novel approaches to a major challenge in the ALS field. Over 1000 solvers from more than 20 countries signed up on InnoCentive to compete in the second round of the challenge, which aimed to translate these new ideas into practical application.

Rutkove’s biomarker, using a method called electrical impedance myography (EIM), sensitively measures the flow of a small electrical current through muscle tissue. The current travels differently through healthy and diseased tissue, and by comparing the size and speed of electrical current, EIM can accurately measure the progression of the disease.

The promise of this biomarker has already garnered interest from the biotechnology community. Neuralstem, a biotherapeutics company, is already using EIM as a biomarker in an ALS clinical trial. Two additional biotechnology companies, Biogen Idec and Genzyme, are actively considering incorporating the biomarker into trials as well.