The Michael J. Fox Foundation will pay USD 6.5 million for Nightingale Health to analyse 60,000 UK Biobank samples for neurodegeneration markers. The company disclosed the agreement as inside information on 30 September. A day later, Nightingale published an annual report setting a revenue target of at least EUR 10 million for the current financial year.
The work will use Alamar Biosciences' NULISAseq™ Neuro 220 Panel, which is designed for neurodegeneration and other brain health conditions. At the Foundation's direction, the dataset goes to UK Biobank and opens to the wider research community in 2027. The aim is to find blood markers that change years before the symptoms of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's appear.
CEO and founder Teemu Suna said the company believes the deal will produce the world's largest brain health-focused proteomics study on a single research cohort.
The contract puts Nightingale's move into proteomics to work
The annual report says Nightingale expanded its offering into proteomics in response to growing interest in multiomics, strengthening its position in the research market. The step came through its November 2025 partnership with Alamar.
The report describes research as a separate business with its own customers and products. It is also where much of the evidence for Nightingale's healthcare business comes from, including measurements of all roughly 500,000 UK Biobank participants. The largest research agreements the report lists for the past financial year were with Aalborg University, at about EUR 2.4 million, and the Moli-sani study, at about EUR 0.7 million.
Revenue follows the samples, and the first read comes in March
Nightingale's revenue for the financial year ended June 2026 was EUR 5.50 million, up from EUR 4.69 million. That fell short of the more than 50% growth the company had targeted. In June, Nightingale warned that a EUR 2.4 million project announced in September 2025 had been delayed for reasons outside its control. As a result, about EUR 2 million of revenue moves into the current financial year. Suna called it "timing, not lost business".
The company recognises revenue over time as samples are analysed. It collects advance payments for most of its services, and the gap between payment and analysis is typically three to six months. The release gives no timeline for analysing the 60,000 samples.
The company expects its liquid funds of EUR 36.8 million to last until the end of the 2027/2028 financial year. The half-year report on 9 March 2027 will be the first chance to see how much of the delayed project and the Fox Foundation contract has turned into revenue towards the EUR 10 million target.
