Leaders of the NIHR Queen Square Dementia Biomedical Research Unit have welcomed the outcome of the G8 Dementia Summit they attended and called for global collaboration.
The unit’s director Professor Martin Rossor and programme lead Professor Nick Fox attended the event in Westminster which aimed to develop coordinated global action on dementia. Topics for discussion included: improving life and care for people affected by dementia and their carers; preventing and delaying dementia and social adaptation to global ageing and dementia.
Commenting on the summit, Professor Rossor said: “Perhaps the most important thing is that the G8 Dementia Summit happened at all. This is a major commitment and recognition of the importance of dementia globally. What was clear, and for me an important take home message, is that the dementia challenge cannot be tackled by any individual research group, nor indeed any individual nation. The way forward will be a global collaboration”.
At the summit it was announced the UK will aim to double its annual dementia research funding to £132m by 2025.
Professor Fox said: “The summit really raised the profile of dementia research – which is a very good outcome in its own right. The announcement of increased funding is excellent news for UK dementia research – and should encourage new researchers into the field. The question that should have been asked of the other seven G8 health ministers was ‘will you not match the UK’s commitment to research spend?’
“The key test of the summit will be whether the planned follow-on meetings can get commitments on funding, reduce bureaucracy and increase cooperation.”
Highlighting the importance of biomarkers in research to encompass widespread fields of discipline, Professor Fox said: “The summit is only part of how we change thinking about trials and treatments, which will require more reliance on biomarkers. By definition if you are treating people at a pre-clinical stage it is hard to use clinical outcomes”.
“This really ups the importance of us using biomarkers, using imaging, using the most sensitive clinical measures too, using all of those to identify the right people for pre-symptomatic trials and, most importantly, giving us ways of tracking change to identify whether treatments are effective”.
