The Prime Minister has announced a £48 million industry partnership to support dementia research and speed up the development of new treatments.
The partnership will make it easier to join clinical trials and help promising new treatments reach patients faster.
£33 million will be invested through the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme. Other funding will come from Bristol Myers Squibb, GSK and Gates Ventures to make it easier to recruit enough people into clinical studies, which is one of the biggest barriers to dementia research.
The investment will support the work of The BARBARA Alliance, a UK-wide not-for-profit partnership bringing together government, industry, academia, charities and people with lived experience of dementia.
A flagship programme also known as BARBARA will create a single, co-ordinated platform linking the UK’s health data, research and clinical trial capabilities, making it easier for researchers to find participants and for people across the UK to take part in studies.
Nearly one in two people will be affected by dementia in their lifetime, either by living with the condition, being a carer or both. Currently around one million people are living with the condition in the UK.
However, compared to other diseases, fewer people take part in dementia research. Anybody over the age of 18 years old can sign up, with or without a dementia diagnosis or memory concerns through the NIHR’s Join Dementia Research service.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham said: "Dementia is a devastatingly cruel disease, not only for those who live with it, but for the families who care for them. For too long, we have accepted dementia as something to be managed later in life, rather than a disease we can defeat. I don’t accept that. In fact, I have real hope that we can come together and do exactly that.
"I want Britain to be the country that makes the breakthrough and delivers the cure for dementia the world has been waiting for. That is why I am making dementia research a national priority - by backing the NHS, universities, researchers and industry to drive the breakthroughs we desperately need.
"This investment goes hand in hand with our plans for a National Care Service, helping ensure that people living with dementia get the care and support they need, and giving families peace of mind that their loved ones will be cared for."
Health and Social Care Secretary, Yvette Cooper said: "This cruel disease has done so much damage to families across our country, and for too long we have lacked the tools to fight back. This investment will help us turn the tide on dementia, helping us to speed up diagnosis, accelerate research and give more people the chance to take part in trials that could transform their futures.
"We are also determined to ensure that every person living with dementia gets the care they deserve, and that no family is left to fend for themselves when a loved one needs support. So, alongside this new investment, we will ensure that the treatment of dementia is one of the central priorities of our new National Care Service."
