The EPAD project, originally scheduled to end in December 2019, has been extended. We are pleased to share that IMI has officially approved our request for a 6-month no-cost extension to the project, setting the end date in June 2020. This extension will allow the delivery of the start of the first EPAD Proof of Concept (PoC) appendix within the official lifetime of the project as well as the implementation of a sustainability model that allows EPAD to continue its activities after June 2020.

The project started in January 2015 with the goal of streamlining the testing and development of preventative treatments for Alzheimer’s disease. To this end, EPAD has been developing a platform on which new compounds can be tested in an efficient way, delivering more effective, targeted interventions that can slow or stop dementia.

By combining knowledge and expertise from 39 organisations across multiple sectors, EPAD has been able to accomplish a lot over the last 4.5 years. Examples of these accomplishments are the EPAD Register, the EPAD Longitudinal Cohort Study currently recruiting in several European sites and with more than 1900 research participants screened and the establishment of the PoC framework. Good progress has been made on the PoC pipeline and the contract negotiations with the upcoming Intervention Owners. The team is looking forward to the inclusion of the first participant in the first PoC appendix in Q2 2020.

In addition, over the past months the EPAD sustainability work package has made significant progress in making sure that EPAD can continue running during the post IMI period, renamed as EPAD2.0, as of July 2020.

We are confident that this 6-month extension is a fantastic opportunity to successfully implement what we have been working so hard on, the first PoC appendix and EPAD 2.0. We would like to thank all the EPADistas and research participants for their enthusiasm and dedication to the EPAD initiative. We are looking forward to the upcoming months!