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We are delighted to announce that 80 new research participants were enrolled in the EPAD Longitudinal Cohort Study (LCS) in June. We were thus able to continue the positive trend of increasing recruitment on a monthly basis, as it made June our most successful month to date  exceeding the 75 research participants enrolled in May and the 73 in April.

Congratulations are due to VUmc (Amsterdam, Netherlands) as the team screened 15 research participants in June for their inclusion in the EPAD study making it the most successful centre this month. Congratulations to the whole team (pictured above at the General Assembly meeting in Amsterdam with Lisa Vermunt, Silvia Ingala, Pieter-Jelle Visser and Philip Scheltens missing in the photo).

Philip Scheltens, Director of the Alzheimer Centre was delighted by the success of his team: “The EPAD project will create the largest trial ready cohort for early stage AD trials in the world. Its setup and design, in combination with the proof of concept studies that will start next year, makes it a unique and rich source of relevant patient data. We at VUmc are thrilled to be a part of EPAD and consider it our duty to be frontrunner in inclusion. We expect our patients are anxious to start the first trial with new compounds and so are we.”

A special mention this month goes to José Luis Molinuevo’s team in Barcelona (Spain) who recruited 11 new research participants.

We are also pleased to have reached an exciting new milestone with over 800 screened research participants. Stay tuned for more news after the summer break in early September!

The scientific director of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Research Program at the Barcelonaβeta Brain Research Center, José Luis Molinuevo, presented in Japan the EPAD project, in two conferences about European research initiatives on Alzheimer’s disease Prevention.

On July 2^nd, he participated in a session on Alzheimer’s disease at the 18^th World Congress of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology, in Kyoto. Molinuevo explained the latest advances on the preclinical stage of the disease, as well as the observational cohorts and interventional programmes carried out in Europe, such as the EPAD project and the Alfa Study. The session was also composed by Takeshi Iwatsubo, from the University of Tokyo; Colin L. Masters, from the Florey Institute in Melbourne; and Michael D. Devous, from Avid Radiopharmaceuticals in Philadelphia.

On the following day, Molinuevo gave a talk at the Department of Neuropathology of the University of Tokyo. He focused on the new definition of Alzheimer’s disease research, based exclusively on the biomarkers that are associated to the pathological process of the disease. He also presented current projects on primary prevention, such as the FINGER study, and on secondary prevention such as EPAD.

The scientific director of the BBRC also met representatives of three ministries of the Japanese government who are involved in policymaking and public funding for dementia, in aspects from medical care and research to dementia-friendly urban planning.

The European Prevention of Alzheimer’s Dementia Consortium (EPAD) seeks a Communications and Events Officer (part-time: 18.75 hours/50% FTE). The post is for a fixed-term of 1 year based at the Department of Psychiatry, Warneford Hospital in Oxford (UK).

The post holder will support the delivery of EPAD’s communications strategy, disseminate high quality communications through a range of channels and take the lead in organising the delivery. He/she will be responsible for monitoring the impact of communications activities to help improve future performance.

They are looking for someone with:

• Educated to degree level or equivalent
• Excellent communication skills
• Experience in event design, management and delivery
• Excellent writing, editing and proof-reading skills, with the ability to adapt editorial style to a wide range of audiences.

The deadline for applications is 4 July 2018. You can find more information about the entry requirements and the recruitment process here.

On 7 June, the Gerontopole of Toulouse University Hospital organised a concert honouring Claude Nougaro for the EPAD research participants in Toulouse (France). It was a great success with more than 200 attendees.

The EPAD study recruited its first French research participant in September 2016 via the Gerontopole of Toulouse University Hospital. It was the first site to open in France and the fourth in Europe and has currently recruited over 110 participants.

A short video is available here.

We are delighted to announce that 75 new research participants were enrolled in the EPAD Longitudinal Cohort Study (LCS) in May. This made May our most successful month to date as it continued the positive trend in recruitment of research participants by exceeding the 73 research participants enrolled in April and the 66 in March.

Congratulations are due to BBRC (Barcelona, Spain) who screened 11 research participants in May for their inclusion in the EPAD study making it the most successful centre this month. Congratulations for being the most successful trial delivery centre for a second month this year to the team of José Luis Molinuevo (pictured on the left) and his colleagues Laia Tenas, Anna Soteras, Anna Brugulat, Carolina Herrero, Laura Hernández, Oriol Grau, Tania Menchón and Montserrat Vila.

Special mentions this month go to Giovanni Frisoni’s team in Geneva (Switzerland) and Craig Ritchie’s team in Edinburgh (United Kingdom) who recruited 10 and 9 new research participants respectively.

In addition, the EPAD family of trial delivery centres grew to 17 sites in May with Manchester and NHS Grampian (UK) both enrolling their first research participants. We expect three additional sites to become operational in UK and Italy in the coming weeks. We are also pleased to have reached an exciting milestone with 700 screened research participants in the LCS. Stay tuned for more news in July!

This year, the European Prevention of Alzheimer’s Dementia (EPAD) general assembly meeting was held in Amsterdam, under the banner “How to assure sustainability”. It was hosted by VU University Medical Center (VUmc) Amsterdam and kindly sponsored by VUmc, Amgen, Novartis and Janssen. The meeting provided a chance to gather everyone from across many different countries who work on the EPAD project to discuss progress and future activities.

Discussions on study progress and future plans

The general assembly meeting commenced with Serge Van der Geyten, Craig Ritchie, and Philip Scheltens welcoming more than 180 attendees. They gave a general overview of the project, reflected on the evolution of EPAD and introduced the agenda for the coming days. Neil Mitchell, Joe Milne and Kristy Draper then explained the role of the University of Edinburgh (UEDIN) in the EPAD Longitudinal Cohort Study (LCS) and the Proof of Concept (PoC) platform. The enhanced role of IQVIA within the study management under the leadership of UEDIN was also reported. Craig Ritchie closed the day by presenting the LCS and Trial Delivery Centers (TDCs) network as the heart and soul of the EPAD project.

The second day placed the emphasis squarely on the EPAD LCS.
During the first session, Joe Milne reported the current LCS status and the progress thus far. Besides the increased recruitment rate, we were glad to see the EPAD family of TDCs growing –17 sites are now enrolling research participants and a number of other sites should be activated and opened in the coming days and weeks. Katrin Haeverans, Emma Law and Craig Ritchie provided more insights to the implemented LCS recruitment strategies, like the establishment of the LCS recruitment taskforce and activation of PrePAD Velocity for all sites. The latter initiative will not only boost recruitment, but will further enrich the LCS with prodromal Alzheimer’s disease research participants and thus ensure the LCS can serve as a successful readiness cohort for the first PoC appendix.
The next session was hosted by Craig Ritchie, who invited five national principal investigators to present their TDCs and report their lessons learned and future plans. There was also a presentation on the EPAD research access process by Judith Syson and James Bonner. During the afternoon of the second day, participants reflected on WP-specific activities and research in the areas of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia via an interactive poster session which was followed by three work package breakout sessions.

The third and final day of the meeting hosted sessions on the PoC protocol, virtual pipeline and EPAD branding. Craig Ritchie and Serge Van der Geyten closed then the meeting by presenting what the project wants to achieve in 2019 and beyond. There was also an exciting announcement that the inclusion of the first candidate for the PoC will likely happen in Q1 2019.

EPAD research participants at the heart of the EPAD project

We are absolutely delighted that seven EPAD research participants from UK, Spain and the Netherlands were willing to come to the general assembly. During the second day of the meeting, they had the opportunity to meet together within the session organised for the research participant panel. The EPAD participant panel has been established in order to involve the research participants in every aspect of the study, giving them an active voice in the project and helping the collaborators learn from their experiences. Currently, there are three panels running across Europe.

47 young researchers are involved in the EPAD project

The highlight of this year’s General Assembly was the presence of 25 young researchers (fellows) involved in the EPAD project. During the third and final day, the EPAD consortium gathered for an EPAD Academy session, who welcomed oral presentations of nine young researchers. It was also fantastic to hear more about the EPAD Academy aims and activities. During the meeting, four fellows also had the opportunity to present their work in a poster format.

Thank you

The three-day assembly firmly emphasised the importance of collaboration between the different European sites and partners to assure the sustainability of our project. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all Epadistas and those involved in and collaborating with EPAD.

To cap off a successful few days, we reached an exciting milestone just as the general assembly concluded, with the news that we now have 700 screened research participants in the LCS.

Our sister project, Amyloid imaging to prevent Alzheimer’s disease (AMYPAD), which began its activities on October 2016, has recently enrolled its first research participant.

The first participant was recruited in Geneva, Switzerland, within the diagnostic and patient management sub-study (DMPS) of the AMYPAD project. In this clinical study, researchers aim to include subjects suspected of possible Alzheimer’s disease and determine the usefulness of β-amyloid imaging as a diagnostic marker for Alzheimer’s disease. The study will involve people with dementia, but also subjects with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or subjective cognitive decline (SCD), and will study the impact of β-amyloid PET on both diagnostic confidence, patient management and resource utilization.

For further information, visit www.amypad.eu or please contact: info@amypad.org

Acknowledgement

The project leading to this application has received funding from the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking under grant agreement No 115952. This Joint Undertaking receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and EFPIA.

We are delighted to announce that April was the most successful month to date with 73 new research participants enrolled in the EPAD Longitudinal Cohort Study. We continued the positive trend in recruitment of research participants by exceeding the 66 research participants enrolled in March and the 53 in February.

Congratulations are due to Université de Genève (Geneva, Switzerland) as the most successful trial delivery centre of the month screening 14 research participants in April for their inclusion in the EPAD study. According to Prof Giovanni Frisoni, principal investigator of the Geneva team: “EPAD is piloting the future. A future when Alzheimer’s will not be treated when memory symptoms are already established, but risk will be detected in the population, high risk persons will be identified and treated with drugs that will decrease the risk.”

Congratulations to the team of Giovanni Frisoni (pictured on the right) and his colleagues Frédéric Assal, Aline Mendes, Maura Parapini (second from right), Zyka Selimi (first from left), Lucas Sveitaka, Christine Trombert (third from left) and Coralie Vuilloud (second from left).

The EPAD family of trial delivery centres also grew to 15 sites in April with Hôpital Pitié Salpêtrière – AP-HP (Paris, France) and West London Mental Health (London, United Kingdom) both enrolling their first research participants.

Add to this that, in April, we reached the milestone of 600 screened research participants and we hope that you will share our positive assessment of the continuing progress of this exciting research collaboration. Stay tuned for more news in June.

What is your current role in EPAD?

I coordinate EPAD at the Edinburgh Trial Delivery Centre, working with a great team of research assistants, study doctors and research nurses to deliver the protocol. I oversee the daily running of the study in our TDC, making sure we have sufficient recruitment avenues to bring in new participants, that we have enough staff trained and delegated to work on the protocol and that the protocol is being follow to give the best quality data. I also manage two of our parent cohorts in the centre which we can use to maintain recruitment into EPAD.

What did you do prior to joining EPAD?

I joined the Edinburgh EPAD team in June 2017, and prior to this worked in an NHS research team as a data manager, study coordinator and then deputy team manager. My background is in psychology and I first started working with people with dementia in 2009 as part of a placement year.  After graduating I spent 7 years in the NHS working on a variety of dementia and mental health studies, including many clinical trials of investigational medicinal products. I’ve also been involved in the PREVENT study, one of the first parent cohorts for EPAD in the UK, since it started in 2013.

Tell us a bit about the institution/company/organisation you work for.

I work for the University of Edinburgh which is the lead site and sponsor organisation of EPAD. My actual place of work is the Centre for Dementia Prevention, which is combines research in basic science, medicine and social sciences working together in the effort to prevent dementia. The Centre is where we see our EPAD participants for their study visits. We also run other large prevention studies from this centre as well as focusing on treatment trials for participants with a diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease.

What are your expectations from the EPAD project?

I’m really excited to be an EPADista and be part of this innovative project. I have the privilege of being able to meet and work with our participants on a daily basis and their dedication to the study is really inspiring. I think the EPAD LCS is already showing how successful the project is going to be with more participants and sites joining every month.  Over the next few months and years I’m looking forward to getting the first proof of concept trials up and running and really seeing how EPAD can change the way we do Alzheimer’s clinical trial research.

The first quarter of 2018 started with great intensity! We were busy working towards opening new sites and improving recruitment.

Positive results of our work have begun to come out in a short time with specific progress achieved. First of all, we are delighted to have reached a big milestone in February 2018 when our EPAD Longitudinal Cohort Study (LCS) reached 500 participants screened. We are excited that we will be releasing our first 500 LCS participant data set soon! We are also pleased that EPAD LCS marked its best month to date for recruitment of research participants in March 2018 with 66 new research participants enrolled.

Besides seeing that each site is improving recruitment, 2018 had a great start with four new sites opened in Oxford (UK), Tayside (UK), Paris Nord (France) and Paris La Salpetrière (France). EPAD has now 14 sites enrolling and 640 research participants screened. There is a major drive to open new sites in the coming weeks. The great news is the number of new sites activated this month in April 2018 – the two most recent being Manchester and Bristol (UK) this week.

To ensure success of the project, continued efforts within all work packages are made with the cumulative goal of advancing research in Alzheimer’s Dementia.  More LCS recruitment strategies have been implemented including PREPAD Velocity, installation of IQVIA LCS management under the leadership of University of Edinburgh, contractual & financial improvements, accelerating TDC opening, enhancing recruitment and ensuring high data quality and compliance with ICH-GCP. As a key action of the new communication plan (deliverable D6.4 submitted to IMI in March 2018), EPAD has also started to carry out specific actions to support the TDCs and the communication with research participants.

The EPAD project aims to develop a platform to investigate new treatments to prevent or delay the onset of Alzheimer’s dementia in people at risk of developing the condition. The building of that platform is on track to start in Q1 2019 – let’s aim for the next milestone – stay tuned.