(Press-News.org) Contact information: Diana Friedman
dfriedman@nyas.org
212-298-8645
New York Academy of Sciences
'Path to 2025' Alzheimer's Disease Summit: Reforms urgently needed to streamline road to Alzheimer's
New report provides specific recommendations for governments, academia, and industry to reduce costs and increase efficiency in Alzheimer's R&D so new drugs reach patients faster and health systems save billions
NEW YORK, November 6, 2013 – As the burden of Alzheimer's disease escalates worldwide, efforts to develop effective treatments are failing to keep pace because of the high costs and risks associated with developing Alzheimer's drugs. Reforming Alzheimer's drug development, so it is more streamlined and efficient, would bring down costs and speed progress toward approval of drugs that slow or stop the disease. By meeting the U.S. goal of effective Alzheimer's prevention and treatment by 2025, millions of lives can be saved and improved, and billions of dollars in healthcare expenditures will be averted.
These are conclusions of a report on Alzheimer's drug development that will be discussed today at the "Alzheimer's Disease Summit: The Path to 2025" held at the New York Academy of Sciences (the Academy). The Summit, co-convened by the Academy, the Global CEO Initiative on Alzheimer's Disease (CEOi) and the U.S. National Institute on Aging/National Institutes of Health (NIH), brings together global leaders from government, academia, non-governmental organizations, and industry to accelerate progress on Alzheimer's research and development over the next decade. This Summit follows on the first Alzheimer's Disease Research Summit convened by the NIH in 2012.
"The Path to 2025" Summit comes during a pivotal time for Alzheimer's disease, as the requisite conditions for drug development success – from finance, business, science, and government – are converging, creating worldwide momentum in the fight against Alzheimer's. Helping drive this momentum, the new report, "Economic Analysis of Opportunities to Accelerate Alzheimer's Research and Development," available at http://www.nyas.org/Pathto2025report and commissioned by the Academy from RTI International, is presented today as a working draft to elicit comments and evaluation by the Alzheimer's experts at the Summit. A final version of the report will be published in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences in early 2014, and is intended to serve as a further stimulus for action among stakeholders in the Alzheimer's field.
As the report draft delineates, rapid action is sorely needed. "Alzheimer's disease is a global emergency. It robs people of dignity in their final years and takes a debilitating toll on national economies," says New York Academy of Sciences President and CEO Ellis Rubinstein. "Progress in developing new therapies has been unacceptably slow, and so we must rethink how Alzheimer's research is carried out so that we can accelerate our understanding of what causes this complex disease."
"Global leadership and collaboration across business and government are essential to drive coordinated action, promote rapid innovation, and spur the focus needed to achieve a means of prevention and effective diagnosis, treatment, and care for Alzheimer's and dementia," says George Vradenburg, Convener of the CEOi. "The inefficiencies in the current drug development system can be addressed and we can meet the goal of stopping Alzheimer's by 2025."
Alzheimer's disease and other dementias currently affect more than 35 million people worldwide, with 2010 global expenditures alone reaching more than US $600 billion. The burden of Alzheimer's disease is projected to rise steeply as the number of people living with it roughly doubles by 2035, and triples by 2060, because of aging populations worldwide. Despite numerous large-scale drug trials, a treatment to slow or stop the progression of Alzheimer's has thus far proven elusive, and current therapies treat symptoms in limited populations for short periods of time. Recognizing the global implications of this crisis, the G8 is preparing for its first-ever meeting on dementia in London in December 2013.
Cost of Alzheimer's Drug Development Currently Three Times Industry Average
One of the significant findings in the report is that the major bottlenecks in identifying an effective Alzheimer's disease treatment are the high cost and risk of drug development and research, particularly large clinical trials of thousands of patients over multiple years that test a single drug. The report estimates that the total cost of bringing an effective Alzheimer's treatment to market currently approaches $6 billion – nearly three times the industry average for drug development. (Total cost includes expenditures on an effective drug and on the failed drugs preceding it.)
The report considers the likely economic impacts of adopting a series of recommendations made by government agencies, expert panels, and other bodies to streamline how Alzheimer's drugs are developed and tested. Among the reforms recommended are:
Developing reliable disease markers to predict the progression of Alzheimer's disease in different patients and better match people with treatments likely to work for them;
Making clinical trials more efficient and less costly by establishing global trial-ready cohorts of eligible clinical trial participants as well as using adaptive trial designs that will enable the testing of multiple drugs, in combination, tailored for different at-risk populations;
Establishing data-sharing arrangements for companies to share precompetitive research results so that other scientists can learn more rapidly how to slow or stop Alzheimer's; and
Promoting public-private partnerships that pool resources from governments, academia, industry, and patient advocates to co-invest in Alzheimer's drug development and testing.
The report estimates that implementing these and other reforms to Alzheimer's drug development would reduce the total cost of developing an effective Alzheimer's treatment by nearly $4 billion and reduce significantly the overall timeline to develop and introduce a successful Alzheimer's treatment, bringing both more in line with the industry average. The recommended reforms would also lead to increased private investment in Alzheimer's drug development.
Speeding the availability of an Alzheimer's drug that can slow or stop the disease by 2025 could have tremendous benefit for patients and health systems. By creating conditions favorable to Alzheimer's drug development through targeted recommendations, 7 million case-years of dementia could be averted and upwards of $100 billion in healthcare expenditures could be saved over a 15-year period in the United States alone, according to the Academy-commissioned report.
'The Path to 2025' Summit Convenes Global Alzheimer's Leaders to Address Research Bottlenecks
"The Path to 2025" Summit of November 6-7, 2013, begins a new biannual meeting intended to identify the actions needed to achieve the goal of preventing and effectively treating Alzheimer's disease by 2025, including the identification of additional public and private resources; the execution of field-wide priorities dedicated to Alzheimer's research and development; and adoption of the reforms recommended in the RTI report. This Summit is intended to alternate with the biannual Alzheimer's Disease Summits convened by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. "The Path to 2025" is a project of the New York Academy of Sciences, the Global CEO Initiative on Alzheimer's Disease, and the National Institute on Aging/NIH. The Academy, working through its Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia Initiative, has prioritized Alzheimer's disease because of the inherent societal and economic challenges, and the opportunity to advance science and deliver transformative solutions for those with and at risk for Alzheimer's disease.
Presentations and discussions at "The Path to 2025" focus on ways for public and private sector organizations, including those in the biopharmaceutical, academic, government, technology, financial services, healthcare delivery, philanthropic, and patient advocacy communities, to collaborate more strategically and efficiently on Alzheimer's research and drug development goals. For more information on the Summit, including the agenda and speaker biographies, visit http://www.nyas.org/Pathto2025.
###
About the New York Academy of Sciences
The New York Academy of Sciences is an independent, not-for-profit organization that since 1817 has been committed to advancing science, technology and society worldwide. With 25,000 members in 140 countries, the Academy is creating a global community of science for the benefit of humanity. The Academy's core mission is to advance scientific knowledge, positively impact the major global challenges of society with science-based solutions, and increase the number of scientifically informed individuals in society at large. Please visit us online at http://www.nyas.org.
About the Global CEO Initiative on Alzheimer's Disease
The Global CEO Initiative on Alzheimer's Disease represents an acceptance of the invitation from public authorities, domestically and internationally, to the private sector to forge robust public-private partnerships to stop Alzheimer's disease and dementia. Our vision is that the CEO Initiative becomes a leading business voice on this seminal public health issue of our time, which will have profound impact in fiscal, social and political matters as we "change the game" on Alzheimer's. By working together and in partnership with leading non-governmental organizations and governments, the CEO Initiative will identify and pursue research, therapy development, financing and public awareness projects of the highest priority that, when achieved, can transform the global fight to stop Alzheimer's disease. Please visit http://www.ceoalzheimersinitiative.org.
'Path to 2025' Alzheimer's Disease Summit: Reforms urgently needed to streamline road to Alzheimer's
New report provides specific recommendations for governments, academia, and industry to reduce costs and increase efficiency in Alzheimer's R&D so new drugs reach patients faster and health systems save billions
2013-11-06
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Prognostic value of baseline HRQOL for survival for 11 types of cancer pointed out by EORTC study
2013-11-06
Prognostic value of baseline HRQOL for survival for 11 types of cancer pointed out by EORTC study
Results of an EORTC study published in Cancer point out the prognostic value of baseline recorded health-related quality of life for survival for ...
Nature's great diversity: Remarkable 277 new wasp species from Costa Rica
2013-11-06
Nature's great diversity: Remarkable 277 new wasp species from Costa Rica
Costa Rica reveals astonishing biodiversity of braconid wasps, with 277 new species of the tribe Heterospilini described in the latest special issue of the open access journal ZooKeys.
This is the second ...
Touch may alleviate existential fears for people with low self-esteem
2013-11-06
Touch may alleviate existential fears for people with low self-esteem
As human beings, we all know that we are going to die some day. Most of us deal with this knowledge by trying to live meaningful lives, but people with low self-esteem ...
NIST's new compact atomic clock design uses cold atoms to boost precision
2013-11-06
NIST's new compact atomic clock design uses cold atoms to boost precision
Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated a compact atomic clock design that relies on cold rubidium atoms instead ...
Cocktail novelties inspired by nature's designs
2013-11-06
Cocktail novelties inspired by nature's designs
Mechanisms behind water bugs and lilies applied to culinary devices
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- An MIT mathematician and a celebrity chef have combined talents to create two culinary novelties inspired by nature.
John ...
Perfect faults: A self-correcting crystal may unleash the next generation of advanced communications
2013-11-06
Perfect faults: A self-correcting crystal may unleash the next generation of advanced communications
Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have joined with an international team to engineer and ...
Recent National Science Foundation study reveals increase in state government expenditures for research and development
2013-11-06
Recent National Science Foundation study reveals increase in state government expenditures for research and development
According to a recent study published by the National Science Foundation (NSF), state government agency expenditures for research and development ...
Updating building energy codes: How much can your state save?
2013-11-06
Updating building energy codes: How much can your state save?
How much in energy and cost savings would your state realize if it updated its commercial building energy codes? You can find out in a new on-line publication* from the National ...
Not just a pretty face: Bodies provide important cues for recognizing people
2013-11-06
Not just a pretty face: Bodies provide important cues for recognizing people
Computer recognition of people has focused almost exclusively on faces, but a new study suggests it may be time to take additional information into consideration. ...
Postoperative pain may increase risk of temporary problems with learning, memory
2013-11-06
Postoperative pain may increase risk of temporary problems with learning, memory
The pain caused by a surgical incision may contribute to the risk of postoperative cognitive dysfunction, a sometimes transient impairment in learning and memory that affects ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
Less intensive works best for agricultural soil
Arctic rivers project receives “national champion” designation from frontiers foundation
Computational biology paves the way for new ALS tests
Study offers new hope for babies born with opioid withdrawal syndrome
UT, Volkswagen Group of America celebrate research partnership
New Medicare program could dramatically improve affordability for cancer drugs – if patients enroll
Are ‘zombie’ skin cells harmful or helpful? The answer may be in their shapes
University of Cincinnati Cancer Center presents research at AACR 2025
Head and neck, breast, lung and survivorship studies headline Dana-Farber research at AACR Annual Meeting 2025
AACR: Researchers share promising results from MD Anderson clinical trials
New research explains why our waistlines expand in middle age
Advancements in muon detection: Taishan Antineutrino Observatory's innovative top veto tracker
Chips off the old block
Microvascular decompression combined with nerve combing for atypical trigeminal neuralgia
Cutting the complexity from digital carpentry
Lung immune cell type “quietly” controls inflammation in COVID-19
Fiscal impact of expanded Medicare coverage for GLP-1 receptor agonists to treat obesity
State and sociodemographic trends in US cigarette smoking with future projections
Young adults drive historic decline in smoking
NFCR congratulates Dr. Robert C. Bast, Jr. on receiving the AACR-Daniel D. Von Hoff Award for Outstanding Contributions to Education and Training in Cancer Research
Chimpanzee stem cells offer new insights into early embryonic development
This injected protein-like polymer helps tissues heal after a heart attack
FlexTech inaugural issue launches, pioneering interdisciplinary innovation in flexible technology
In Down syndrome mice, 40Hz light and sound improve cognition, neurogenesis, connectivity
Methyl eugenol: potential to inhibit oxidative stress, address related diseases, and its toxicological effects
A vascularized multilayer chip reveals shear stress-induced angiogenesis in diverse fluid conditions
AI helps unravel a cause of Alzheimer's disease and identify a therapeutic candidate
Coalition of Autism Scientists critiques US Department of Health and Human Services Autism Research Initiative
Structure dictates effectiveness, safety in nanomedicine
Mission accomplished for the “T2T” Hong Kong Bauhinia Genome Project
[Press-News.org] 'Path to 2025' Alzheimer's Disease Summit: Reforms urgently needed to streamline road to Alzheimer'sNew report provides specific recommendations for governments, academia, and industry to reduce costs and increase efficiency in Alzheimer's R&D so new drugs reach patients faster and health systems save billions