UsAgainstAlzheimer’s Chairman George Vradenburg today issued the following statement regarding the announcement by Bill Gates, Leonard Lauder, the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, the Dolby family, and the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation that they will jointly commit $30 million to help launch the Diagnostics Accelerator.
“UsAgainstAlzheimer’s is pleased that Bill Gates and Len Lauder are partnering to lead another effort to accelerate a cure for Alzheimer’s disease. The new $30 million investment that will launch Diagnostics Accelerator will be used to fill critical gaps in the path to a cure – namely, the development of a diagnostic that is reliable, affordable, and accessible.
“Timely, accurate, actionable and compassionate diagnoses of Alzheimer’s and of other dementias and causes of cognitive impairment are desirable from a health care perspective, but also because late or inaccurate diagnoses significantly limit the ability to diagnose treatable causes of cognitive impairment, the ability to identify appropriate candidates for clinical trial studies and, in the future, identify the persons most appropriate for innovative medicines that will be available in a few years Importantly, if we are unable to study people with Alzheimer’s at an early stage of the disease – and to study them as the disease progresses – our understanding of the disease and how best to treat it is gravely hindered.
“The Diagnostics Accelerator complements our Biomarker Consortium Initiative and Brain Health Ecosystem Project, which emphasizes the need to modify the health care system to prioritize brain health and detect disease onset early in the disease progression. Improving brain health and overcoming diseases like Alzheimer’s will require more than finding drugs that can treat people whose brain diseases have progressed to the point that they cause debilitating symptoms. Brain healthy communities will be ones in which people are aware of the state of their brains, are equipped with knowledge to help them prevent – or at least stave off – brain disease, and are quickly diagnosed and treated once brain disease processes begin.
“By launching Diagnostics Accelerator, Bill Gates, Leonard Lauder, the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, the Dolby family, and the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, are putting much needed focus and investment on the development of a safe, accurate, noninvasive, cost-effective diagnostic that can quickly test anyone deemed at risk for Alzheimer’s disease. We applaud this group of donors for taking an important first step to enhance Alzheimer’s disease detection.”
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Founded in 2010, UsAgainstAlzheimer's (UsA2) is an innovative non-profit organization demanding – and delivering – a solution to Alzheimer's. Driven by the suffering of millions of families, UsAgainstAlzheimer's presses for greater urgency from government, industry and the scientific community in the quest for an Alzheimer's cure – accomplishing this through effective leadership, collaborative advocacy, and strategic investments.