Mass General Brigham Wins Up to $41.2M to Test Alzheimer’s Prevention Combinations

A federal health research agency has awarded Mass General Brigham up to $41.2 million over four years to run a national Alzheimer’s disease prevention trial. The trial is led by the McCance Center for Brain Health and will use clinical research units at Massachusetts General Hospital. According to the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), the award started Sept. 16, 2026. The Mass General Alzheimer’s trial will test 5 to 10 combinations of treatments at once in people who show early biological signs of the disease but little or no memory loss.

The award at a glance

• Size: up to $41.2 million, per ARPA-H. Mass General Brigham describes it as “up to $41 million.”
• Dates: four years, starting Sept. 16, 2026.
• Who leads it: principal investigator Rudolph Tanzi, director of the McCance Center for Brain Health in the Mass General Brigham Neuroscience Institute, with Gene Bowman, the center’s clinical trials director.
• What it tests: drugs the FDA has already approved for other conditions, plus natural products, meaning compounds from plants and other natural sources.
• Who can join: adults across the United States who are cognitively unimpaired or mildly impaired and have biomarker evidence of early Alzheimer’s.

How a platform trial works

Most Alzheimer’s studies test one drug at a time, often after the disease has already damaged the brain. A platform trial instead tests several treatments at the same time using shared infrastructure, such as one recruitment system, one control group and one data pipeline. Treatments can be added or dropped as results come in.

“Alzheimer’s disease therapies are often evaluated too late in the disease progression, after substantial neurodegeneration has already occurred,” Tanzi said in the Mass General Brigham announcement. “This program aims to start interventions earlier, identify the most promising therapies rapidly, and, ultimately, uncover strategies to prevent progression before neurodegeneration begins.”

The design copies a model already used at Massachusetts General Hospital. The Sean M. Healey & AMG Center for ALS at MGH runs a platform trial for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and co-investigator Sabrina Paganoni is part of the new team. MGH’s Neurological Clinical Research Institute and its Clinical Translational Research Unit are collaborators. So is the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study at the University of California San Diego, which announced its role separately.

Blood tests instead of years of waiting

The trial relies on blood-based biomarkers rather than waiting years for memory changes. Researchers will track plasma p-tau217, a protein linked to Alzheimer’s, along with the Abeta42/Abeta40 ratio, GFAP and NfL. Regimens that move those markers in the right direction could then go on to larger studies that measure memory and daily function.

The timing reflects a shift in the field. As Science reported, Alzheimer’s blood tests are growing in popularity and may soon be covered by public insurance. No drug has yet been shown to prevent the disease, though, so people who test positive have few proven options.

Alongside the platform trial, the McCance team will continue a separate trial of its most promising natural-product combination, known as NPC1. “One-drug-at-a-time development is slow and costly,” Bowman said. “The platform trial approach has the potential to transform the pace of discovery.”

Part of a wider ARPA-H push

ARPA-H is an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Mass General Brigham award is one of several Alzheimer’s projects in a new ARPA-H package. Other recipients include Washington University in St. Louis, which is building an AI-enabled open-data platform, and the University of California, San Francisco.

The grant adds to a busy stretch for Boston brain research. The Boston Report recently covered a study of the BCG vaccine and tau in mice and genetic research on Alzheimer’s risk. For background on the hospital’s research enterprise and its history, see our guide to Massachusetts General Hospital.

The award does not mean any treatment has been shown to work. The trial is designed to find promising candidates for later, larger studies, and results will take years.

Sources

• ARPA-H: Platform Trial for Biomarker-Guided Alzheimer’s Disease Prevention (award details)
• Mass General Brigham: ARPA-H funding will launch accelerated drug-testing platform for Alzheimer’s
• ARPA-H: New Alzheimer’s projects to accelerate early detection and treatment
• UC San Diego Today: UC San Diego joins ARPA-H-funded initiative
• Science: Government puts $41 million into clinical trials to ward off Alzheimer’s

Photo: The Bulfinch Building at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, by Ajay Suresh, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).