A new “Dementia Trials Accelerator”, backed by £20m of government funding, has been launched to increase the number of people participating in dementia clinical trials in the UK from just 61 in 2021-22 to “tens of thousands”. Spearheaded by two national research institutes, the UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI) and Health Data Research UK (HDR UK), the Dementia Trials Accelerator will tackle the historically low numbers of people enrolled into dementia trials in the UK.
The initiative, which is supported by the government’s Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme (formerly known as the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Mission), aims to rapidly identify a large group of people who are at risk of or diagnosed with early-stage dementia. This will boost opportunities for these people to participate in research – offering them the chance to receive potentially life-changing new treatments as part of a clinical trial.
The Dementia Trials Accelerator’s goal is to position the UK as the destination of choice for Pharma and Industry to invest in and run late-phase clinical trials.
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With promising new treatments on the horizon for neurodegenerative conditions, it's crucial the UK improves the infrastructure for clinical trials to ensure people don’t miss out.
Jennifer Brown, 74, who is currently participating in a clinical trial for Alzheimer’s, said:
“I feel it is very important to be part of any trial that will help with clinical and drug research into Alzheimer’s, and would like to see more opportunities for people to take part. My husband and I were privileged I was accepted for the recent NorAD trial, and we await its results. Hopefully, our contribution and that of others in such trials will speed up an understanding, and eventual eradication, of this terrible disease.”
The Dementia Trials Accelerator will also speed up the development of new treatments for dementia by paving the way for faster, more efficient trials. One of the primary challenges hindering breakthroughs in dementia treatments is the difficulty in recruiting a sufficiently large pool of volunteers for clinical studies. Often close to 80% of volunteer participants are excluded based on screening procedures.
Professor Siddharthan Chandran, Director of the UK Dementia Research Institute, said:
“The Dementia Trials Accelerator’s goal is to position the UK as the destination of choice for Pharma and Industry to invest in and run late-phase clinical trials. The UK has all the assets to be a trials powerhouse in dementia, from world-class science, cohorts and data infrastructure to a unitary healthcare system. The Accelerator will bring together these assets to ensure that people at high risk or living with dementia have every opportunity to participate in clinical trials.”
Professor Andrew Morris, Director of Health Data Research UK, said:
“Today's research is tomorrow's care. By harnessing cutting-edge technology and the power of health data, the Dementia Trials Accelerator will unite industry, academic and clinical expertise from around the UK to significantly boost our ability to run efficient, large-scale trials, giving more people quicker access to potentially life-changing treatments.”
The Accelerator will develop new, digitally enabled methodologies to deliver clinical trials at scale in community settings across the UK. This focus on simplicity and accessibility will broaden opportunities for people at risk or with early-stage dementia to participate in clinical research. Input from patients themselves will be integral to ensure the widest possible access.
Science Minister Lord Vallance said:
“Dementia is a dreadfully cruel condition, but breakthroughs in research give us hope that it can become increasingly treatable within our lifetimes.
“Delivering rigorous clinical trials, at pace, is important to enabling progress in this field and to putting Britain at the forefront of progress in dementia treatment. The Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme and the Dementia Trials Accelerator will help to bring down the barriers preventing this from happening.”
To support scientists, the Accelerator will harness the UK’s scientific and data strengths to roll out new resources. This includes a “Biomarker Minimum Toolbox” to identify the right participants for the right trials, and uniting existing data infrastructure into a single, secure, UK-wide platform to integrate diverse datasets and enable deeper collaboration.
Funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC), the Dementia Trials Accelerator is supported by the government’s Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme. The Accelerator will address pharma-identified roadblocks to the delivery of commercial clinical trials in the UK, as highlighted in the O’Shaughnessy report. Streamlining processes to accelerate progress and widen participation, while maintaining the highest standards of quality and cost-effectiveness, will be at the heart of the initiative, which builds upon existing UK resources, including Dementias Platform UK (DPUK), to transform the landscape of late-phase clinical trials for dementia.
Professor Patrick Chinnery, Executive Chair of the Medical Research Council (MRC), said:
“The MRC-led Dementia Trials Accelerator leverages expertise across our funded institutes the UK DRI, HDR UK and our clinical trials units in partnership with NIHR. Working with industry, patients and the NHS, the Accelerator will improve dementia care by speeding up clinical trial delivery by capitalising on the UK’s population cohorts using an innovative AI-platform.”
The Government’s Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme, launched by the Government in 2022, aims to develop innovative research tools and boost the number and speed of clinical trials in dementia and neurodegeneration. The Dementia Trials Accelerator will play a crucial role in supporting this vision, helping to scale up trials and increase participation, so more people can access life-changing treatments faster.
The UK Dementia Research Institute and Health Data Research UK are working closely with the Government, NIHR Dementia Trials Network (DTN), and other cross-sector partners to help realise this ambition, and today’s launch of the Accelerator marks an important step on that journey.
Professor Nadeem Sarwar, Co-Chair of the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme, said:
“Late-stage clinical trials are an essential and necessary step towards knowing whether new medicines are safe and effective. The UK has the opportunity to pioneer in how informative clinical trials can be done efficiently and innovatively – we led the way in doing so for trials testing new medicines during the pandemic, and these learnings can be applied to other therapeutic areas. It is critical that we identify ways of doing more, faster and bigger pivotal dementia trials in the UK: first, to accelerate getting new medicines tested and approved for patients; and second, to attract life sciences investment into the UK. The Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme is delighted, therefore, to establish the Dementia Trials Accelerator to position the UK as a global leader in innovative late-stage clinical trials for dementia.”
Hilary Evans-Newton, Co-Chair of the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme, said:
“Since 2012, recruitment for late-stage dementia trials has consistently lagged behind cancer research, leaving crucial gaps in our understanding of this devastating condition. Right now, only 2% of people with a dementia diagnosis in the UK are signed up to hear about clinical trials, and many studies fail to represent the diversity of people affected. Women, people from African-Caribbean and South Asian communities, and those with Down’s Syndrome, who are disproportionately impacted by dementia, are often not accounted for. The Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme was established to ensure that more people with dementia in the UK benefit from clinical trials, at the same time as fuelling economic growth by advancing the UK’s life sciences sector. The Dementia Trials Accelerator will help bring us one step closer to achieving that goal.”
The Dementia Trials Accelerator is still in development and is not yet recruiting participants. For updates, please visit www.ukdri.ac.uk/dementia-trial....
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