$70M lined up for new Alzheimer’s research consortium

The NIH has announced the formation of a five-year, $70 million effort to organize, coordinate and otherwise accelerate new research into Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.

The Alzheimer’s Clinical Trial Consortium (ACTC) will initially engage 35 study sites across the U.S., helping them with participant recruitment, data management, scientific input and neuroimaging analysis, according to the announcement.

The agency expects the consortium to be able to handle five to seven separate trials during the five-year period. Investigators will partner with the consortium, although individual trials conducted under the ACTC umbrella will be funded with separate dollars.

NIH says specific funding opportunities will be announced in early 2018 and opened to all qualified investigators.

Laurie Ryan, PhD, chief of the National Institute on Aging, which oversees NIH research into Alzheimer’s, says the project’s leaders are especially interested in recruiting an ethnically diverse base of study subjects “so that trials can more effectively include and benefit everyone who is affected” by Alzheimer’s.

“When we announced the funding opportunity for a new publicly-supported clinical trials network, we envisioned a next-generation consortium, where shared expertise could enhance the ideas and approaches of individual investigators proposing and conducting trials,” she adds.

The consortium’s stated objectives include providing centralized support for the imaging component of ACTC’s clinical trials.

NIH notes that the number of older Americans with Alzheimer’s disease is projected to rise from 5.3 million now to as many as 11 to 16 million by 2050.

To read the full announcement, click here.