Lord Bethell, Chair of The BARBARA Alliance has welcomed the launch of The Dementia Challenge to target faster and better dementia diagnosis.
“This £80 million fund is another important step forward in helping the UK in its fight to meet the challenges of dementia and in getting treatments to patients,” he said.
“Britain has an unfortunate habit of discovering innovations and then failing to deliver them to patients. This challenge is a welcome attempt to break that habit and get better diagnostics and treatments not just approved by regulators but to patients.
“The science is moving quickly. Blood tests that can detect signs of Alzheimer’s are already being trialled in NHS memory clinics, and the first medicines that slow the disease have arrived.
“But these advances depend on people being identified and diagnosed early enough to benefit, and on researchers being able to find the right participants for clinical trials.”
“The UK has fallen from second to sixth in the world for new dementia clinical trials.
“Slow diagnosis and difficulties identifying eligible patients are part of the challenge, alongside pressures on research infrastructure and the time and complexity involved in setting up and delivering clinical trials.
“The BARBARA Alliance has been set up to help bring the many strands involved in dementia research together and we look forward to seeing the progress made by these brilliant research teams and working with them in the future.”