Davos Alzheimer’s Consortium to Link Global Cohorts
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Conceived at the World Economic Forum in January 2021, a group calling itself the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative is attempting to globalize Alzheimer's disease research and trials. DAC is a partnership between industry, academia, governments, and health-care systems around the world. Over a six-year period, the initiative aims to put $750 million toward three goals: building a global, diverse study cohort of more than one million participants by synching up existing cohorts; supporting platform-style clinical trials; and helping health-care systems better diagnose, treat, and support people with AD.
DAC’s leaders envision their project standing along other initiatives that have emerged out of Davos, such as the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).
“We have reached a critical juncture in Alzheimer’s research. While researchers around the world have individually made significant inroads on understanding its pathology, Alzheimer’s continues to be a formidable health challenge and threatens to become a major crisis due to rapidly aging populations worldwide. Against this backdrop and recognizing the need for a global collaborative approach to achieve substantial progress in Alzheimer’s research, the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative was conceived,” Nancy Ip of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology wrote to Alzforum (full comment below).
“The Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative represents a meaningful step toward dealing with Alzheimer’s disease globally,” said Ron Petersen of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. “Its emphasis on the development of diagnostic and treatment strategies for dementia in low- and middle-income countries is particularly important.” Petersen advises DAC’s clinical trial network.
According to an announcement on September 21, DAC has so far secured only $25 million in funding for its foundational phase. It will go toward establishing a global research cohort. Companies that are developing AD treatments and diagnostics are among the initial funders and collaborators, i.e., Eli Lilly and Co., Roche, Biogen, Eisai, Otsuka, C2N, Cognivue, Linus Health, and Cogstate. As DAC expands, more funding is expected from governments, foundations, and industry, said George Vradenburg of UsAgainst Alzheimer’s, who chairs DAC.
The burden of AD is growing rapidly in low- and middle-income countries, which comprise more than 70 percent of the worlds’ AD cases, according to a policy report from Alzheimer’s Disease International. Alas, most research in AD is conducted with people from wealthier countries. Nearly 80 percent of genetic studies recruit people of European descent, despite 80 percent of the global population being from elsewhere. One step toward lessening such disparities is to establish a global research cohort. To do this, DAC has partnered with the International One Hundred K+ Cohorts Consortium and other groups. A network of global research studies, IHCC aims to understand the genetic and biological basis of a variety of diseases by facilitating data-sharing.
So far, 12 cohorts in Africa, Asia, and South America have joined DAC, with 20 others waiting in the wings. In collaboration with Gates Ventures, a venture capital firm run by Bill Gates, DAC will create a data-sharing platform accessible to researchers around the world to conduct longitudinal studies.
Using genetic data from this initial batch of cohorts, DAC scientists have calculated polygenic risk scores for 100,000 people who come from a variety of ethnic and racial groups, according to a DAC press release. In addition, DAC intends to test cognition in everyone in this international cohort using digital measures, and test people’s blood for AD markers including Aβ and different forms of tau. To this end, Linus Health is providing smartphone apps to track cognition, while C2N Diagnostics is supplying biomarker tests.
Toward the goal of establishing a global clinical trials network, DAC and the Global Alzheimer’s Platform so far have coaxed 90 trial sites in North America and about a dozen in Europe to join. DAC aims to fold in sites in Singapore, Australia, Japan, China, South America, and Africa. This network is meant to form a trial-ready support platform for recruitment, enrollment, and data analysis during trials. To reach under-represented populations, the network aims to deploy telemedicine and remote assessments.
“The goals of DAC align closely with collaborative research efforts in Australia led by the Australian Dementia Network and Dementia Trials Australia, and we are very pleased to participate with DAC to deliver faster clinical trials and new diagnostics on a global scale,” Chris Rowe of Austin Health, Heidelberg, Victoria, Australia wrote to Alzforum.
Future advances in diagnosing and treating AD would fall flat without health-care systems to get them to people. DAC’s third leg, dubbed Healthcare System Preparedness, aims to fund health-care systems around the world to help standardize clinical practice and diagnostics to enable early detection of AD. Health-care partners in the U.S., Brazil, Mexico, Scotland, Japan, and Jamaica are on board to adopt blood-based markers and other early detection methods, according to DAC.
“Over recent years, there have been several global initiatives to meet the many challenges we face in detecting, preventing, and managing Alzheimer’s disease. DAC ties these threads of activity together into one truly global program,” commented Craig Ritchie of the University of Edinburgh. “What shines in this initiative is the objective that outputs be applied at a truly global level, irrespective of wealth, race, language, country of residence, or ethnicity.”—Jessica Shugart
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Hong Kong University of Science & Technology
We have reached a critical juncture in Alzheimer’s research. While researchers around the world have individually made significant inroads on understanding its pathology, Alzheimer's continues to be a formidable health challenge and threatens to become a major crisis due to rapidly aging populations worldwide. Against this backdrop and recognizing the need for a global collaborative approach to achieve substantial progress in Alzheimer’s research, the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative was conceived.
The initiative holds much promise. By enabling active engagement of experts and innovators from around the world, facilitating rigorous and collective global efforts on various facets of Alzheimer’s research, and developing initiatives in new areas of study, the consortium has the potential to expand the quality, scale, and pace of the investigations. The potential outcomes include disease prevention and improved care, which will beneficially impact millions of people worldwide.
Austin Hospital
The fight against Alzheimer's disease and other dementias must be a global endeavor where research is strategic and efficient and advances are quickly shared between researchers and implemented into local communities. The size of the challenge requires substantial commitment and resources from governments, academic institutions, and industry.
The Davos Alzheimer's Collaborative is helping to bring together the world's governments and research leaders from both the public and private sectors, to deliver on earlier global commitments and accelerate the development and distribution of new diagnostics and therapies for the prevention, detection, and treatment of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. The goals of DAC align closely with collaborative research efforts in Australia led by the Australian Dementia Network and Dementia Trials Australia and we are very pleased to participate with DAC to deliver faster clinical trials and new diagnostics on a global scale.
University of Edinburgh
Over recent years, there have been several global initiatives to meet the many challenges we face in detecting, preventing, and managing Alzheimer’s disease. DAC ties these threads of activity together into one truly global program. The leadership of DAC and the engagement of groups and individuals pivotal in previous efforts is structurally ideal to meet its far-reaching objectives. Three fully integrated work streams in Health Care Readiness, Cohorts, and Clinical Trials will provide not just new knowledge but the capacity for rapid implementation and system-level changes in early detection and therefore improved clinical management for the individual and public health and policy for global communities. What shines in this initiative is the objective that outputs be applied at a truly global level irrespective of wealth, race, language, country of residence, or ethnicity.
Roche/Genentech
Alzheimer’s is as complex as the brain it invades, and despite continued scientific progress, huge questions remain about how we can detect it early, effectively intervene, and improve the experience of those affected all around the world.
All of this requires unprecedented partnership and collaboration on a global scale.
The Davos Alzheimer's Collaborative (DAC) provides the platform and opportunity for the best minds in the world to come together to accelerate not only the science, but also how we integrate that science into clinical practice for the direct benefit of the people affected.
I'm most excited by the potential that we will have through this collaboration to accelerate recruitment into clinical trials, enable greater genomic diversity within Alzheimer's cohorts, and pilot and test new ways to transform healthcare systems to better identify and support the millions of families living with Alzheimer's disease.
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