Government ups the ante in dementia research
pharmafile | February 26, 2010 | News story | Research and Development | Alzheimer's, dementia
The government has attempted to ‘up the ante’ in dementia research by convening a ministerial group comprising charities, scientists, research bodies and the pharma sector.
Chaired by care services minister Phil Hope, the group’s raison d’etre is “to drive up the volume, quality and impact of work in the field”, the Department of Health says.
Meeting for the first time this week, it is tasked with helping scientists access available research funding, seeking to increase public support, providing policy advice and looking at cause, prevention, cure and care.
The government has pledged to invest £1.7 billion in health research each year and in theory there is equal access across all therapy areas in terms of funding.
But research bodies say they currently receive poorer proposals for dementia work than for other conditions.
“I want to see more dementia research winning funding,” Hope explains. “But not enough dementia researchers are putting forward quality proposals to get the funding. That’s why we will be looking at how we can help scientists up the ante.”
The group, which also includes a former carer of someone living with dementia, will look at all areas of research from basic biomedical to applied clinical and care services.
Rebecca Wood, chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Research Trust, said it was a “promising start” but warned that “much more action on dementia research is required”.
There are around 700,000 sufferers in the UK and this number is predicted to rise to one million in the next decade.
“This group must now live up to its promise to bring about change and improve the outlook for the hundreds of thousands of people with dementia in this country,” said Clive Ballard, director of research at Alzheimer’s Society.
In January Alistair Burns, professor of old age psychiatry at the University of Manchester, was appointed the government’s ‘dementia czar’.
His remit includes the implementation of the National Dementia Strategy – the Department of Health says one in three people over 65 will die with a form of the condition, which costs the economy £17 billion a year.
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