Alzheimer’s Disease in focus
30.09.13
September is World Alzheimer’s Month – a disease getting increasing attention as health systems around the world face the problems that come with ageing populations. Alzheimer’s and other diseases associated with ageing are becoming ever more urgent points of public health concern. Even the G8 will dedicate a special session to dementias at their December 2013 meeting – a signal that social costs of AD and other neuro-degerative disorders is recognised at the highest political and economic levels.
Increasingly, different stakeholders both within and beyond the healthcare industry are banding together to tackle these challenges. In my view, nowhere is this more apparent than in the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), the public-private partnership between the European Commission and EFPIA. IMI brings together regulators, researchers, academia, and the pharmaceutical industry – among others – to address current gaps in medicines research and development.
IMI is contributing to progress in Alzheimer’s research through the PharmaCog project. Bringing together 32 academic and industry actors from 7 countries, the PharmaCog project is developing new tools to test candidate drugs for Alzheimer’s treatment. PharmaCog is just one IMI project addressing such gaps. Such problems are ongoing and there is a reason the scientific community has yet to solve them – they are extremely complex. That’s why IMI continues to seek participation from a broad range of stakeholders, from academia to small and medium-sized enterprises (SME’s). Problems like Alzheimer’s are pressing and the need to address them is becoming ever more urgent – collaborative efforts like IMI are a must if we want to make progress.
More should come by the end of the year – stay tuned!!
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Find More Info:
- WHO report
- Info on G8 Dementia Summit: The summit will draw on the expertise and experience of the OECD, World Health Organisation, industry, national research organisations, key opinion leaders, researchers and physicians. More here.
- “Healthy Brain, Healthy Europe: A New Horizon for Brain Research and Healthcare” — The final report from this May’s “Healthy Brain, Healthy Europe” Conference, here
