Avi Kremer, Founder of Prize4Life, Joins The ALS Association Team

Washington, D.C. (November 1, 2018) — The ALS Association announced on Thursday that Avi Kremer, founder of Prize4Life, has joined the Association as a consultant. In this role, he will help the Association with fundraising.

“I look forward to contributing to this team as I view The ALS Association as a leader that can unite and coordinate the fragmented ALS landscape and maximize efficiencies,” Kremer said. “As an ALS patient, I believe The ALS Association is the best organization to move us forward to a cure.”

Kremer was diagnosed with ALS in 2004, while a student at Harvard Business School. In 2006, he co-founded Prize4Life, Inc. and in 2007, he founded a second organization, Pras-la’Chaim (Prize4Life-Israel). He led Prize4Life, Inc. as CEO for the majority of its 12-year history and is currently Board Chair of Pras-la’Chaim. Before his ALS diagnosis, he was a project manager at Elbit Systems, and a captain in the Israeli army. Avi was the 2007 recipient of the Laurence A. Rand Prize from The ALS Association, and received the Israeli Prime Minister Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in 2011.

Prize4Life, Inc. was founded with the mission of accelerating the discovery of treatments and a cure for ALS by using powerful incentives to attract new people and drive innovation. Over its history, the organization awarded two $1M prizes – The ALS Biomarker Prize in 2011 and The Avi Kremer ALS Treatment Prize in 2017. In July 2018, the Board of Directors announced the difficult decision to dissolve the 501(c)(3) non-profit organization which it is in the process of completing.

“After 12 years of promoting ALS research, the Board and I realized that the fragmentation in the ALS landscape hinders the quest to find a cure, because when different patient organizations compete, efficiencies aren’t optimized,” said Kremer, who officially stepped down as CEO of Prize4Life, Inc. in August 2018. Pras-la’Chaim has been longtime collaborators with The ALS Association, partnering most recently in 2016 on the ALS Assistive Technology Challenge. The Challenge offered a $400,000 prize for the development of flexible, accessible technology to help people with ALS communicate with ease, and was open to academics, industry, young start-ups, and anyone who believed he could make a difference for people living with ALS.

“Avi Kremer’s vision for such a unique incentive model created a new way for funding ALS research and empowering researchers, which has undoubtedly advanced the research,” said Calaneet Balas, president and CEO of The ALS Association. “We’re very excited to now work with Avi directly in raising funds that help us get closer to effective treatments and a cure.”

About ALS
ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Eventually, people with ALS lose the ability to initiate and control muscle movement, which often leads to total paralysis and death within two to five years of diagnosis. For unknown reasons, veterans are twice as likely to develop ALS as the general population.

About The ALS Association
The ALS Association is the only national nonprofit organization fighting ALS on every front. By leading the way in global research, providing assistance for people with ALS through a nationwide network of chapters, coordinating multidisciplinary care through certified clinical care centers, and fostering government partnerships, the Association builds hope and enhances quality of life while aggressively searching for new treatments and a cure. For more information about The ALS Association, visit our website at www.alsa.org.