Category: News

The EPAD Academy core team encourages the EPAD Fellows to present their work at national and international scientific conferences and events. To highlight the importance of presenting young researchers’ work, awards are now given for the best poster presentations.

Each EPAD Fellows could enter the competition. They are inviting to share photos of theirs posters, presented at the conferences, via social networks throughout 2018. In December, a small scientific panel appointed by the Academy will choose the winner, and the best poster will be awarded a prize.

Interested to compete for the best EPAD Poster 2018? Check out the above document explaining the procedure and the eligibility into details.

We are very pleased to announce that the EPAD LCS study is now recruiting volunteers in England. People in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire over the age of 50 are being invited by the NHS to join the EPAD project. The University of Oxford is the first site to open in England and Wales and second in the UK.

The first recruit in the two counties is Mary-Jane Hicks (pictured), 57, a personal assistant from Abingdon, Oxfordshire. Her father, Phillip Hicks, was diagnosed with dementia in 2012 aged 87 and died from the condition in September 2017 aged 92. She lived with and cared for him during most of this time at his home in Abingdon.

Ms Hicks found out about EPAD through Join Dementia Research, a website where the public – with and without dementia – can register to be told of dementia studies they can take part in.

She said: “I’m worried that I might get dementia one day and I saw first-hand how awful it is, so I thought ‘if there’s anything to do to keep it at bay, like if the researchers identify something that might progress into it, then I’d be keen to be part of clinical trials’.”

“I would encourage people to take part in research. If we expect science to mend us, then for that to happen, we have to participate. That’s always been my view.

“I hope we can identify how to halt dementia before it kicks in. If people are going to live to be old, I hope they keep the quality of life that goes with that.

“I do all I can to live a healthy life, and if there’s something I can do to stop me getting dementia, I want to keep it at bay for as long as possible.

“You need participants in order to do research, so that’s why I think taking part is really worthwhile.”

The news release announcing the first participant enrolled in the Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust is available here.

We are delighted that the team of CITA Foundation (pictured) screened 16 research participants in January 2018 for their inclusion in the EPAD Longitudinal Cohort Study, making it the most successful trial delivery centre that month. Congratulations!!

The CITA Foundation (San Sebastian, Spain) opened as a new EPAD Trial Delivery Center in June 2017. It is a private, non-profit foundation whose vision is to be an international benchmark institution in research on Alzheimer’s disease and to contribute to the wellbeing of society through the transfer of knowledge generated and the creation of economic value. For more information visit http://www.cita-alzheimer.org/

The CITA Foundation is an active partner of the European Prevention of Alzheimer’s Dementia Consortium (EPAD) which currently has 11 participating sites. We have opened several sites in England, France, Netherlands, Scotland, Spain, Sweden and the latest site to enroll research participants is Oxford, UK. 453 research participants have already been screened of which 417 are currently enrolled. EPAD is poised to open further sites in Europe in the coming weeks, so watch this space.

Pictured: from the left:

• Standing: Montse Clerigue. Jon Saldias, Ane Iriondo, Maria Arribas, Maite Garcia ,Pablo Martinez Láge, Ainara Estanga , Amaya Garcia Eizaga, Fernando Boada
• Seated: Mikel Tainta, Maite Murillo, Zigor Diaz, Mirian Ecay

On 26 January, the Spanish specialized magazine for physicians “Diario Médico” published an article entitled “Una década de investigación en la prevención del Alzheimer” including an interview of Prof. José Luis Molinuevo, EPAD co-leader and Scientific Director of the BBRC (Barcelonabeta Brain Research Center). BBRC is the institute where the Pasqual Maragall Foundation conducts all the scientific activities and the research projects to fight Alzheimer’s disease.

The interview is about the 10 years of research at the Pasqual Maragall Foundation. At the end of the article, he mentions the EPAD project and its goal.

The article can be read on the journal website.

What is your current role in EPAD?

As a Janssen employee, I support the EPAD team from an operational perspective. I hope to bring my experience and can help building the EPAD POC platform so that it’s ready to welcome the first Intervention Owners in 2018 and beyond!

What did you do prior to joining EPAD?

At Janssen, I have been the Global Operational Program Lead for the phase 2b/3 trials with a BACE inhibitor in Alzheimer’s Disease. My team and I initiated 2 pivotal trials: the global EARLY trial in asymptomatic subjects at risk of sporadic Alzheimer’s Dementia (i.e. pre-clinical subjects) and Janssen’s participation in the DIAN trial in autosomal dominant AD. In the collaboration with DIAN-TU, Janssen was the third company to bring in a compound.

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

This is my second life at Janssen. I started my career in clinical trials at Janssen in the Clinical Pharmacology unit, where we performed many phase-1 trials across therapeutic areas. I left Janssen to become co-founder of a Phase 1 Unit, where I coordinated the operational and executional aspects of all phase-1 trials. After many years in early Development, I joined Quintiles as a Project Manager and led a global Oncology phase 3 trial for several years.

I returned to Janssen to become the Clinical Program Lead for Neuroscience Early Development programs in both AD and Mood. Since the BACE inhibitor was in my portfolio from first-in-human onwards, I agreed to become the Global Operational Program Lead when the compound moved into Late Development.

What are your expectations from the EPAD project?

I am thrilled to witness EPAD becoming a success in 2018!! EPAD is a very complex and innovative initiative and I am amazed to see how various experienced partners bring together their expertise and eventually move forward as one team.

What is your current role in EPAD?

I am the project manager for the EPAD Longitudinal Cohort Study (LCS) at IQVIA, formally Quintiles.  As all of the EPAD team will know, IQVIA have very recently been given an enhanced role in the LCS study.  This has given me a much broader scope in the study, where my key goals are concentrated on 3 main areas; bringing on new TDCs, helping boost enrolment and data collection.  I am also involved in the LCS recruitment taskforce which is committed to driving enrolment into the LCS study.

What did you do prior to joining EPAD?

I have been at IQVIA for 5 years now, starting as a start up manager then quickly moving on to the project management team.  Before this, I started as a toxicologist conducting a wide range of pre-clinical pharmaceutical studies, which included design, management, analysis of results and report writing.

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

IQVIA is an EPAD partner.  IQVIA is a leading global provider of information, innovative technology solutions and contract research services focused on using data and science to help healthcare clients find better solutions for their patients. Formed through the merger of IMS Health and Quintiles, IQVIA offers a broad range of solutions that harness advances in healthcare information, technology, analytics and human ingenuity to drive healthcare forward. IQVIA enables companies to rethink approaches to clinical development and commercialization, innovate with confidence as well as accelerate meaningful healthcare outcomes. IQVIA’s insights and execution capabilities help biotech, medical device and pharmaceutical companies, medical researchers, government agencies, payers and other healthcare stakeholders tap into a deeper understanding of diseases, human behaviors and scientific advances, in an effort to advance their path toward cures.

What are your expectations from the EPAD project?

I’m sure I speak for everyone and not just myself when I say that I want to make sure the whole EPAD project is a success.  This is a very unique project which could revolutionise the Alzheimer’s clinical trial process, while really enhancing the understanding of the early phase and progression of the disease.  The foundations of the program’s success start with the LCS study which my team are honoured and excited to be driving forward, with the assistance of the broader EPAD team and TDCs.  My long term expectations for the project is for the LCS to provide research participants for the Proof of Concept study (PoC), which has the real potential to make a huge impact to the medical world and individually in each participants life.

With the beginning of this new year, the EPAD project is celebrating it’s 3rd birthday.

We are proud to look back at a lot of successful deliveries. We list herein some of our key highlights of the past 12 months. We are looking forward to doing even better this year!

Wishing you all an exciting and happy New Year,

The EPADistas

On January 9^th, Barcelona hosted the first National Leads & ExCom meeting of the year. The aim of the meeting was to discuss the EPAD LCS recruitment status and needs for the proof of concept study, as well as to set up a contingency program and to ensure the sustainability of the longitudinal cohort.

EPAD has two main goals this year, announced Serge Van der Geyten, EPAD project coordinator: to increase the number of sites and to start the interventional study. The European Consortium has begun 2018 with 10 sites enrolling participants, but the recruitment will be boosted by the incorporation of 20-25 new sites by summer. This recruitment will lead to the start of the interventional study by October/November.

In a video interview during the meeting, Miia Kivipelto, professor of Clinical Geriatrics at the Karolinska Institutet, also mentioned the launch of the EPAD Academy, which will contribute to stimulate an academic environment and to encourage young researchers to put some efforts on Alzheimer’s research.

Finally, Philip Scheltens, professor of Neurology at the VUmc Amsterdam, recognized that “as with every project, it takes time in order to get things started”. Despite the “slow” start of the project, due to the ethical committees’ processes and regulations, he concluded that “now we are on the right track and we need to prove that we can do it!”.

Watch the short interviews here.

On 5 and 6 December 2017, Alzheimer Europe (AE) hosted its third annual Alzheimer’s Association Academy in Brussels, Belgium. The meeting was attended by 49 participants including representatives from AE member organisations, national Alzheimer associations and company. There were 14 expert speakers on the packed agenda. The two-day Academy was a highly interactive event, with lots of time for questions after each of the five sessions, which focused on:

• The role of biomarkers in the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease/dementia
• EU research collaboration on timely diagnosis – Opportunities for collaboration with Alzheimer’s associations
• Patient and public involvement in dementia research
• Real-world evidence in dementia research
• EU programmes and their relevance for Alzheimer’s associations

We were glad to see that two epadistas were invited to present the EPAD project.
Richard Milne from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, (WP8 co-leader) gave a presentation entitled “How to communicate biomarker results in an asymptomatic, MCI and dementia population? Challenges identified by the EPAD and AMYPAD projects”.
Stina Saunders from the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom, presented the participant panel in EPAD as a model of involving research participants in research.