Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation

What Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation does

Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF), founded in 1998 by Leonard A. Lauder and Ronald S. Lauder, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charity and venture philanthropy organization headquartered at 57 West 57th Street, New York. It is the only public charity solely focused on funding drug discovery and development for Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, having deployed approximately $400 million across 792+ programs in 21 countries and attracted over $3 billion in follow-on funding from government, pharmaceutical, and venture capital sources.

ADDF's product and program portfolio spans the Diagnostics Accelerator initiative ($150 million committed across three phases since 2018, including the March 2026 DxA 3.0 launch funding blood tests for tau, multi-marker panels, and AI-driven diagnostic tools), the SpeechDx multinational observational study generating a longitudinal AI-training dataset licensed by Siemens Healthineers and Callyope, the CognitiveVitality.org consumer brain-health platform, the ADDF ACCESS CRO network, the Melvin R. Goodes Prize for research excellence, and historically the seed-funded Amyvid PET scan (FDA-approved 2012) and PrecivityAD blood test (FDA-approved 2025). Strategically, ADDF pursues a biology-driven, precision-medicine thesis, having pioneered investment in pathways beyond amyloid and tau at a time when the field was amyloid-centric.

The organization operates a venture philanthropy model rather than a commercial revenue model: it raises capital from individual philanthropists (notably Bill Gates and the Lauder family), family foundations (Dolby Family Ventures, Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation), and corporate partners, then deploys that capital as competitive grants and VC-comparable mission-related investments to academic researchers, biotech startups (e.g., MindImmune, Circular Genomics, AviadoBio), and pharmaceutical companies (Pfizer, PsychoGenics). Returns are recycled into the charitable mission, and the Lauder brothers personally underwrite overhead so that 100% of donations reach scientific programs. Strategic distribution channels include the FNIH Biomarkers Consortium, ADDF-Harrington Scholar Awards, and the CTAD Biotech Showcase.

Name

Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation

Legal name

Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation

Website

https://alzdiscovery.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

1998

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

The Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation is a nonprofit venture philanthropy organization founded in 1998 that funds academic researchers, biotech startups, and pharmaceutical companies developing drugs and diagnostics for Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, deploying approximately $400 million across 792+ programs in 21 countries.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Nonprofit Pharmaceutical Research Foundation

NAICS

Other Grantmaking and Giving Services (813219), Grantmaking and Giving Services (81321), Voluntary Health Organizations (813212)

akta.pro primary industry

Research & Science Grantmaking Foundations (BPAGAKAI)

akta.pro secondary industries

International Grantmaking & Development Foundations (BPAGAKAH), Impact Investment & Development Investment Funds (BPADACAO), Grantmaking & Philanthropic Funds (Institutional Donors) (BPADAOAB)

Keywords

• Alzheimer's drug discovery
• Venture philanthropy funding
• Biomarker research programs
• Clinical trial grants
• Nonprofit research foundation

Headquarters

HQ city

New York

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Others, Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Donations and Philanthropic Contributions: ADDF receives funding from individual donors, family foundations, corporate partners, and high-net-worth philanthropists including Bill Gates, Leonard Lauder, and others. These funds are used to award grants and investments for Alzheimer's research.
2. Venture Philanthropy Returns: Through its venture philanthropy model, ADDF makes investments in biotech companies and programs. Returns from these investments are channeled back into the organization's charitable mission.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

ADDF is a nonprofit venture philanthropy foundation that funds and invests in Alzheimer's drug discovery, biomarker development, and clinical trials worldwide. It awards competitive grants and makes mission-related equity-style investments in academic researchers, biotech companies, and pharmaceutical firms, channeling capital into high-risk early-stage programs and reinvesting returns into its charitable mission.

Product overview

The Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) operates as a nonprofit venture philanthropy organization focused on accelerating drug discovery for Alzheimer's disease. The ADDF's core offerings include funding programs through its Diagnostics Accelerator initiative (which has invested $150 million across 76 programs), the SpeechDx observational study for AI-driven speech analysis, the CognitiveVitality.org brain health platform, the Melvin R. Goodes Prize for research excellence, and historical support for diagnostic tools including Amyvid PET scan and PrecivityAD blood test. The organization employs a venture philanthropy model making investments rather than grants, with 100% of donations going directly to science.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Diagnostics Accelerator: An initiative focused on developing novel biomarkers for early detection of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, co-founded by Leonard Lauder and Bill Gates with $150 million in total funding.
• SpeechDx
• Goodes Prize
• CognitiveVitality

Products and services

• Grant Programs Competitive grant funding programs providing financial support to academic researchers and biotech companies conducting Alzheimer's drug discovery, biomarker development, and translational research, with rigorous scientific peer review.
• Venture Philanthropy Investments Mission-related investments in biotech companies developing Alzheimer's therapeutics and diagnostics, with terms comparable to traditional venture investors; returns are channeled back into ADDF's charitable mission.
• Diagnostics Accelerator (DxA) A venture philanthropy initiative backed by $150 million to develop advanced biomarkers, blood tests for tau and co-pathologies, multi-marker diagnostic panels, and AI-driven diagnostics for Alzheimer's disease, funded primarily by Leonard A. Lauder, Bill Gates, and partner foundations.
• SpeechDx Three-year multinational observational study generating a gold-standard longitudinal speech dataset used to train and validate AI-driven speech analysis tools for earlier Alzheimer's detection and risk assessment; dataset has been licensed to Siemens Healthineers and Callyope.
• ADDF-Harrington Scholar Award Joint award program with the Harrington Discovery Institute combining ADDF funding with pharmaceutical industry advisory support to help academic investigators and biotech companies accelerate translation of innovative Alzheimer's research from early discovery to clinical development.
• Goodes Prize (Melvin R. Goodes Prize) Prestigious prize awarded to Alzheimer's research pioneers, including $150,000 to support therapeutic development.
• CognitiveVitality.org Brain health empowerment tool providing trustworthy ratings, reports, and blogs from expert in-house neuroscientists to help individual consumers protect their aging brain.
• Treat FTD Fund Joint ADDF and Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration (AFTD) fund established with $10 million ($5 million each from the Lauder Foundation and Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation) to accelerate clinical trials for frontotemporal dementia.
• ADDF ACCESS Platform connecting scientists with a virtual network of contract research organizations to advance drug development services for Alzheimer's research.

Quantifiable outcome

• Supported development of Amyvid, the first Alzheimer's PET scan and first diagnostic test for Alzheimer's disease
• +4 more outcomes

Named customers5 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability5 records

Feature3 records

Partnerships

16 partnerships are on record, tiered core, minor and major.

• Clinical Trials on Alzheimer's Disease (CTAD) ConferencecoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 16 June 2026Partnership to collaborate on CTAD's annual Biotech Showcase at CTAD 2026, connecting emerging biotech companies developing Alzheimer's therapeutics with investors and industry leaders.
• Davos Alzheimer's CollaborativecoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 6 April 2026Partnership on 2026 strategy to embed diversity in global dementia research, with initiatives spanning Kenya, Chile, Egypt, India, and Global South, including lower-cost diagnostics development.
• LifeArcminorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 6 April 2026Partner in global dementia research diversity initiative developing lower-cost diagnostics including finger-prick blood tests and AI-driven voice analysis tools.
• Our Future HealthminorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 6 April 2026Partner in global dementia research diversity initiative working to address data gaps and develop lower-cost diagnostics.
• Alzheimer's Disease Data InitiativecoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 6 April 2026Gates-funded initiative partnered with ADDF to develop lower-cost diagnostics and data sharing for global dementia research.
• Siemens HealthineersmajorTechnology or Integration · 17 March 2026Licensed the SpeechDx dataset generated by ADDF's multinational observational study for use in developing AI-driven speech analysis tools for Alzheimer's detection.
• CallyopemajorTechnology or Integration · 17 March 2026Licensed the SpeechDx dataset generated by ADDF's multinational observational study for developing AI-driven speech analysis tools for Alzheimer's detection.
• StartUp HealthmajorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2024Launched Alzheimer's Moonshot initiative with support from Gates Ventures and ADDF, selecting cohort companies covering full spectrum of Alzheimer's care from early detection to treatment.
• Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration (AFTD)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 3 January 2019AFTD contributed $2.5 million to ADDF's Diagnostics Accelerator for FTD biomarker research, and ADDF supports the Treat FTD Fund joint program to accelerate clinical trials for FTD over the next decade.
• Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 May 2018ADDF joined the FNIH Biomarkers Consortium initiative to improve diagnosis and develop targeted therapies for Alzheimer's through standardization of inflammatory biomarker measurement and development of biosignatures.
• BIRAX InitiativeminorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 2 February 2016ADDF joined the BIRAX Initiative bringing together British and Israeli scientists to tackle challenging diseases including Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
• PsychoGenics Inc.minorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 12 January 2016Risk-sharing partnership bringing PsychoGenics' preclinical services to ADDF grantees working on Alzheimer's drug discovery programs.
• Harrington Discovery InstitutecoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 12 August 2015Joint ADDF-Harrington Scholar Award program combining funding and pharmaceutical industry advisory support to accelerate translation of innovative Alzheimer's research from early discovery to clinical development.
• GliaCuremajorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 17 March 2015ADDF awarded $1 million grant to support Phase 1b clinical trial of GliaCure's GC021109 for Alzheimer's disease, targeting P2Y6 receptor for microglial phagocytosis.
• Pfizer Centers for Therapeutic InnovationmajorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 11 February 2015Collaboration to advance development of new small-molecule drugs for Alzheimer's disease and related dementias through joint funding and expertise.
• Alzheimer's Society UKmajorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 11 December 2014Partnership funding projects up to $1.5 million each focused on drug repurposing for Alzheimer's treatment.

Scale indicators8 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Cure Alzheimer's Fund: A nonprofit funding Alzheimer's research that directs 100% of donations to science, directly overlapping with ADDF's mission of funding promising Alzheimer's drug discovery.
• BrightFocus Foundation: Grantmaking nonprofit funding research into Alzheimer's and other brain/eye diseases, directly comparable as a disease-focused research grantmaker.
• The Michael J. Fox Foundation: Disease-specific (Parkinson's) research foundation that pioneered venture philanthropy and funds drug discovery and biomarkers, closely mirroring ADDF's model and approach.
• Cystic Fibrosis Foundation: The archetype of disease-focused venture philanthropy, reinvesting returns from biotech investments into its mission—structurally identical to ADDF's venture philanthropy model.
• Dementia Discovery Fund: A dedicated venture fund investing in dementia therapeutics, directly competing with ADDF for the most promising Alzheimer's drug programs and biotech deals.

Broad incumbents

• Alzheimer's Association: The largest Alzheimer's nonprofit, funding research alongside care, advocacy, and awareness; overlaps on research grantmaking but with a far broader mandate than ADDF's drug-discovery focus.
• Wellcome Trust: Major global biomedical research funder that grants and invests across health, including neurodegeneration; overlaps as a research funder but with a far wider remit.
• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: Large philanthropic grantmaker tied to Gates' Alzheimer's investments and a co-funder of ADDF's Diagnostics Accelerator; overlaps on health philanthropy at much greater scale and breadth.

Emerging players

• Davos Alzheimer's Collaborative: A global initiative advancing dementia diagnostics and research access; an ADDF partner with overlapping goals in lower-cost diagnostics for the Global South.

Others

• Harrington Discovery Institute: Provides funding and drug-development advisory support to physician-scientists; an ADDF co-development partner with overlapping translational drug-discovery funding activity.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/TheADDF
• YouTubeyoutube.com/user/AlzDrugDiscovery
• Facebookfacebook.com/TheADDF
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/alzheimer's-drug-discovery-foundation

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles8 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments59 records

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Frequently asked questions about Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation