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Dementia Research to Get $100 Million Funding

| March 17, 2015 Comment

Dementia Research to Get $100 Million Funding – The UK government and big pharma companies like GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and Bigen Idec, are all contributing money to set up a venture capital fund for research on dementia.

The fund will be set up by JP Morgan, and will be investing in early-stage research into Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia to find an effective treatment. There have been only three new drugs in the past 15 years for dementia, and these address only the symptoms, not a cure for the disease.

According to Patrick Vallance, president of research and development at GlaxoSmithKline, finding a treatment that cures or at least slows the progression of dementia is more of a scientific challenge than a market challenge.

The participating companies will advise an expert panel in deciding which projects to support.

Alzheimer’s disease is a neurodegenerative disease which slowly  destroys memory and mental function. Almost 35 million people worldwide suffer from dementia.

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