USA2 SPOTLIGHT

A September 20, 2019 Cleveland.com article featured UsAgainstAlzheimer’s Co-Founder George Vradenburg speaking about the global scope of Alzheimer’s disease. It is estimated that within 30 years, at least one person in every family worldwide will have Alzheimer’s. According to Vradenburg “The cost of dementia to the world today exceeds 1 percent of total global economic activity. In the United States, the cost of dementia will be comparable to the defense budget in the coming decades. This does not take into account the personal suffering of family members and the social impact of the disease. Government leadership here and abroad does not understand the scope and overall impact of Alzheimer’s on their societies.”

(ICYMI) A September 11, 2019 Franchising.com article spotlighted a new partnership between VeteransAgainstAlzheimer's (a UsA2 network) and Executive Care Northern Virginia, which is leading a fundraising drive including collection boxes across Northern Virginia at independent and assisted living facilities, memory care facilities and more. The drive continues through mid-October with all proceeds donated to the network. “When I met Erin Rayner of VeteransAgainstAlzheimer's, a light bulb went off and the path was clear. We have to do our part to fund the fight against Alzheimer's, so we are thrilled to partner with Poet's Walk and UsAgainstAlzheimer's/VeteransAgainstAlzheimer’s to raise funds for a truly great cause,” said Darren Peterson of Executive Care, whose wife is a United States Navy veteran.

(ICYMI) An August 30, 2019 Life Science Leader article looked at the issue of the lack of diversity in clinical drug trials. Pressure is growing to boost racial, ethnic and gender diversity in order to develop a deeper understanding of genetic and environmental influences on disease progression, and create accurate precision medicine treatments of the future. One barrier to participation is mistrust - of both the government and pharma. According to Stephanie Monroe, Executive Director of AfricanAmericansAgainstAlzheimer’s (a UsA2 network), “Companies also need to respect the doctors that patients have come to trust and rely on, as well as the historically black colleges, universities, and health centers where they may be receiving their care. If pharma is not able to work with those institutions and insists that patients visit another facility, that will continue to foster distrust both among patients and their current healthcare providers who serve as their trusted voice and influencer.”

FINANCES

A September 20, 2019 Yahoo! Finance article announced that Swiss biopharmaceutical company AC Immune received its first payment from Eli Lilly as part of its joint Phase 1 ACI-3024 study. The study is investigating oral small molecule Tau Morphomer™ to treat Alzheimer’s disease. “We are proud to be advancing in collaboration with our partners the clinical development of three additional products targeting Tau – an antibody, a therapeutic vaccine and a diagnostic biomarker – for treatment of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. The start of the ACI-3024 Phase 1 study, represents an important advancement in the broader effort we are making and further expands our robust clinical pipeline to address neurodegenerative diseases, in particular for therapeutics and diagnostics targeting Tau,” said AC Immune lead Prof. Andrea Pfeifer.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

Alzheimer’s Research UK launched its #ShareTheOrange campaign, featuring actor Samuel L. Jackson, in an effort to ‘change the conversation about dementia.’ “…You’re joining millions of people worldwide challenging outdated attitudes on dementia and powering research breakthroughs. With the backing of your favourite TV shows and a host of influencers and celebrities, together we are changing the conversation about dementia.”

EVENTS AND RESOURCES

Read the newly-released “World Alzheimer Report 2019 Attitudes to dementia” from Alzheimer’s Disease International. According to CEO Paola Barbarino, “This report belongs to all the 70,000 of you who replied to our survey, so first of all, thank you… Last year’s World Alzheimer Report  – which focused on research – stated unequivocally that for every 12 studies on cancer there is only one on neurocognitive disorders (not just on Alzheimer’s disease!). This is the size of the research gap - but there still isn’t enough funding in Alzheimer’s and dementia research - despite civil society’s collective efforts.”