The Secretary of Health and Human Services, acting through the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, shall award grants and contracts to public and private entities to cover the costs of research on, and development of interventions intended to prevent, diagnose, mitigate, treat, or cure, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and other rare neurodegenerative diseases in adults and children, including costs incurred with respect to the development and critical evaluation of tools, methods, and processes—

(1) to characterize such neurodegenerative diseases and their natural history;

(2) to identify molecular targets for such neurodegenerative diseases; and

(3) to increase efficiency and productivity of clinical development of therapies, including through—

(A) the use of master protocols and adaptive and add-on clinical trial designs; and

(B) efforts to establish new or leverage existing clinical trial networks.