UK PM Calls For Greater R&D Effort Against Dementia
Addressing 300 health and finance experts who have gathered in London to discuss the global burden of dementia, UK Prime Minister David Cameron urged greater effort to address a “market failure” on dementia research and drug development.
The UK used its G8 presidency last year to host an international summit focused on dementia. The meeting concluded with the establishment of a global goal to find a cure for the disease by 2025. The recent assembly is the first in a series of legacy events following the G8 summit.
UK PM David Cameron said that while some believe it’s impossible to find a cure for dementia, he believes that medicine has the tools for discovery and development. “We first need to tackle head-on the market failure perilously undermining dementia research and drug development. And we need investment in research, greater collaboration, better incentives for taking new treatments to market and earlier access to innovative new treatments for patients,” he said. Mr. Cameron is expected to propose a new dementia drug discovery drive by the UK, focused specifically on how to advance proposals to patent extensions and how to provide patients with earlier access to new drugs.
World dementia envoy Dr. Dennis Gillings cautioned that if global leaders give no incentives to businesses to invest in research, the G8 dementia summit goal of finding a cure by 2025 will be missed.
Jeremy Hunt, who was also at the London meeting, said “…Research shows that if treatment were available to delay the onset of dementia by just 36 months, it would save us here in the UK £5 billion per annum…We need innovation in finance to enable cutting-edge research as well as identifying and removing barriers that are currently stopping us achieving this.”
The Alzheimer's Research UK has announced a £100 million research campaign and the Medical Research Council (MRC) said it is conducting the world’s biggest study to date into dementia with 2 million people in response to the UK’s call to action.