New Report Provides Specific Recommendations to Reduce Costs and Increase Efficiency in Alzheimer’s R&D

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 on November 6, 2013, 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 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.