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Additional investment is needed to maintain momentum and avoid undermining the unique integrated enterprise that is the hallmark of Alzheimer research.
Under the leadership of the National Institute on Aging (NIA), the field of Alzheimer's has developed as the model of interdisciplinary collaborative research - maximizing taxpayer dollars in the search for answers to one of the most devastating and costly diseases of the 21st century. Based in academic institutions across the country, this collaborative model has four integral components that must be adequately supported to sustain the momentum of the research.
Individual investigators hold the key to completing the basic puzzle of Alzheimer's. At current levels, NIA is able to fund only 18 percent of approved projects. It is in the average costs per award that NIA-funded researchers are experiencing more of the impact in that their project budgets are flat-lined with no built-in increases for inflation. The Biomedical Research and Development Price Index is expected to increase by 4.1 percent in fiscal year 2007 and by 3.8 percent in fiscal year 2008. As a result, projects that may hold critical answers are not being funded, and those that are funded are forced to slow or limit their inquiry. Full funding of projects at the current success rate will cost an estimated $28 million over the fiscal year 2007 request. Restoring the success rate to its historic high of 33.8 percent (achieved in 1997) would cost an estimated increase of $127 million. The NIA has taken aggressive, proactive steps to maximize the efficient use of taxpayer dollars and to speed discovery by assuring that Alzheimer researchers do not work in isolation and by making certain that data and discoveries are widely shared. Through the Alzheimer's Disease Centers (ADCs), the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study (ADCS), and the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center (NACC) - all based in leading academic institutions - Alzheimer researchers are collaborating across disciplines, within and across academic settings, to find answers faster, better and cheaper than would otherwise be possible. In 2007, full funding of existing ADCs, the Cooperative Study and the National Coordinating Center would cost an estimated $65 million, or $4 million over the fiscal year 2007 request. Even the most exciting basic research findings have little meaning beyond the scientific community until they have been translated into effective clinical treatments to prevent or slow the progress of Alzheimer's disease. That requires large-scale clinical trials - many of which must be conducted with public support because they involve compounds that are already widely available - or lifestyle changes, which industry has little if any financial incentive to pursue. These trials cost an average of $25 to $30 million. NIA initiates major national projects to assure that new research technologies and tools are applied to Alzheimer research, to improve efficiency, speed discovery and reduce costs. Two such initiatives are now underway. The Imaging Initiative, a collaboration with the Alzheimer's Association and private industry, is using advanced technology to identify early changes in the brain that can serve as "biomarkers" of Alzheimer's in people who do not yet have outward symptoms of disease. This will reduce the time needed to complete clinical trials - lowering their cost and getting effective treatments to the consumer faster. The Genetics Initiative is a multi-site collaboration that is collecting, sharing and analyzing data to complete the picture of genetic risk factors for Alzheimer's disease. This will make it possible to target new preventions and treatments to those who have the best chance of benefiting from them and to get those treatments to them in time to prevent the most devastating imp act of the disease.
It has been proven time and again that American science and ingenuity can solve the most complicated and seemingly impossible challenges: putting a man on the moon and a camera on Mars, eradicating polio, changing AIDS from a death sentence to a chronic illness. We can do the same for Alzheimer's disease, but only if Congress is willing to devote the resources now to make it happen.
Next: Failure to Address Alzheimer's Shortsighted
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Even the most exciting basic research findings have little meaning beyond the scientific community until they have been translated into effective clinical treatments to prevent or slow the progress of Alzheimer's disease.
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