Top Drug Discovery Institutes fast-track new dementia treatments
9 Mar 2015 by Evoluted New Media
The world’s largest dedicated dementia research charity – Alzheimer’s Research UK – has announced a £30 million Drug Discovery Alliance between Drug Discovery Institutes at UCL, the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford.
This project will involve 90 world-class scientists who will develop new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. Every institute will receive £10 million and will be led by a Chief Scientific Officer.
“We will work with the best academic and industrial scientists to identify potential new drug targets for dementia. We will then generate high quality starting points for making new medicines, but then uniquely, make them freely available to the world’s biomedical community,” said Professor Chas Bountra, project leader at Oxford University.
This is the first dementia research on this scale and follows the G8 Dementia Summit last year, when health leaders from across the world presented research goals for drug discovery for dementia by 2025.
Dr Eric Karran, Director of Research at Alzheimer’s Research UK said: “We are committed to making this landmark initiative a success and are confident that the Drug Discovery Alliance will become a scientific tour-de-force”.
Future ambitions for the project involve growth of the Alliance over time and attraction of new institutes from across the globe to become the biggest dementia drug discovery effort in the world.
