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Paris, January 15, 2015 The members of the EPAD initiative today announced the start of a novel collaboration between academic and private sectors to test innovative treatments for the prevention of Alzheimer’s dementia.

Previous attempts to bring new drugs for Alzheimer’s disease to the market have been disappointing despite a high level of investment. However, the realisation that Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive disorder and that early intervention may be more effective has led to research efforts being focused on prevention. The goal of the initiative is the prevention of dementia in people with evidence of the disease (such as biomarker abnormalities as identified by specific tests), who still may have little or no complaints or clinical symptoms.

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The European Prevention of Alzheimer’s Dementia (EPAD) project held its consortium meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland on 19 to 21 May 2015.

The title of the meeting, “Science, Collaboration and Progress” was very appropriate. There were many lively debates between leading researchers, clinicians, ethicists, lawyers and representatives of both pharmaceutical companies and people with dementia (Alzheimer Europe and Alzheimer Scotland).

The key issues were about the scientific, practical, legal and ethical implications related to the setting up of European-wide virtual register of 24,000 patients, of which 1,500 will be invited to participate in a trial to test new treatments to prevent Alzheimer’s dementia.

This initiative is a joint undertaking between the European Union and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA).

The members of EPAD’s communication team held a two day meeting in Barcelona on 9-10 April 2015.

They discussed the ongoing development of the project communication plan and dissemination materials, such as the website, the internal and external newsletters and the project brochure.

The partners also established dissemination procedures – including impact measures – for scientific publications and other communication items.

Finally, they reviewed the agenda for the first EPAD General Assembly that will take place on 19-21 May 2015 in Edinburgh, Scotland (UK).

This year, the International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease (AD/PD) took place between 5-9 March in Lisbon, Portugal. With over 600 presentations spanning six parallel sessions, the conference drew more than 4,700 participants from around the globe.

Amidst the array of presentations and discussions, one of the highlights of the conference momen was the symposium organized by the Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative (AD Data Initiative), titled “How several key efforts are making their data and samples accessible to the broader research community.” Jean Manson, EPAD Principal Investigator, was invited as a guest speaker. In her presentation, Jean highlighted the EPAD open-source data, imaging and samples. She emphasised the project’s commitment to facilitating data accessibility and collaboration within the research community.

EPAD offers a way of accessing the data, samples and image data collected during the EPAD Longitudinal Cohort Study to academic researchers, institutions and companies from all over the world. This is shared through secure online Workspaces via the Alzheimer’s Disease Workbench.

Moreover, Jean Manson and Josie Butchart, engaged with attendees at the AD Data Initiative booth during the conference. The dissemination of EPAD flyers at the booth further enriched attendees with comprehensive information about the EPAD project and its repository of data and samples.

For more information about the conference and the EPAD project, please visit AD/PD 2024 and EPAD’s website, respectively.