CFF Industry Award for Path to a Cure (PTAC)

CFF Industry Award for Path to a Cure (PTAC) is CFF's flagship venture-philanthropy award for companies working on the underlying cause of cystic fibrosis. It sits under the foundation's therapeutics arm in the United States, but the eligibility is broader than the academic awards: for-profit companies are the intended audience, and both U.S. and international firms can apply. The route is used when CFF wants to back a treatment program that could change the disease rather than only refine its symptoms. The award size is negotiated rather than fixed, but the record points to deals that can reach tens of millions of dollars. The process starts with a letter of intent and then moves to a full proposal, with submissions handled on a rolling basis. Alongside capital, CFF can bring the Therapeutics Development Network, research models, reagents, biospecimens, and scientific expertise to the table. This is the right fit for companies that have enough evidence to justify a negotiated partnership and enough ambition to benefit from CFF's clinical and scientific infrastructure. CFF's history here includes the Vertex CFTR program, which later returned about $3.3 billion when royalty rights were sold to Royalty Pharma in 2014, showing how central this route is to the foundation's industry strategy.

Each grant below is a distinct funding opportunity with its own eligibility, scope, and deliverables.