The Association committed a record $109 million in total annual research spending, the largest allocation since the organization's founding, including more than $76 million in grants for new scientific investigations. These grants represent proposals ranked highest by a three-tier peer-review process in a highly competitive field. As the world's leading nonprofit funder of Alzheimer's and dementia research, the Association is currently investing more than $430 million in over 1,110 active projects in 56 countries, spanning six continents.

The Association continues to drive the diversification of clinical trials through the Part the Cloud global research grant program. In FY24, Part the Cloud provided over $2.9 million to move forward three new high-risk, high-reward studies aimed at potential treatments. The continued success of Part the Cloud is due to the drive and vision of philanthropist and longtime Alzheimer's Association champion Mikey Hoag; since Hoag founded Part the Cloud in 2012, the program has funded 71 studies that have generated more than $1.4 billion in follow-on funding. 

The U.S. POINTER study continues to work to better understand the relationship between lifestyle interventions and dementia risk. With recruitment complete, more than 2,000 people are enrolled via study sites in Chicago (Advocate Health Care, Rush University Medical Center), Houston (Baylor College of Medicine in collaboration with Kelsey Seybold Foundation), Providence, Rhode Island (Butler Hospital in collaboration with LifeSpan), Sacramento, California (UC Davis School of Medicine), and Winston-Salem, North Carolina (Wake Forest School of Medicine), and over 30% of participants are from historically underrepresented populations. The Association has invested over $60 million in U.S. POINTER, and the National Institute on Aging (NIA) has made four awards expected to total up to nearly $65 million for add-on studies. In FY24, the Association committed additional funding to engage and monitor participants for four years following their exit from the study. U.S. POINTER results are expected to be reported at the Alzheimer's Association Internal Conference® 2025 (AAIC®).

The Association supported recruitment and retention activities for the Longitudinal Early-Onset Alzheimer's Disease Study (LEADS), a two-year observational study designed to understand the genetic, biological and clinical processes involved in younger-onset (or early-onset) Alzheimer's disease — defined as when symptoms develop before age 65. LEADS recently achieved full enrollment for the study of 600 individuals and has reopened recruitment of cognitively impaired individuals to expand the number of participants to 850 across 18 sites in the United States.

The Association has been a funder of the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) since its advent in 2004. The current iteration of the study, ADNI4, is a five-year extension of the original study, fully funded by the NIA. Since its inception, the goal of ADNI has been to validate biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease clinical trials, and ADNI in its several incarnations has had a major impact on Alzheimer's research and clinical trials, yielding more than 6,200 scientific publications. 

The Alzheimer's Association, Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI) and the UK-based Alzheimer's Society announced 26 awardees in 16 countries of the Pilot Awards for Global Brain Health Leaders, a competitive funding initiative dedicated to bridging the gaps in dementia diagnosis, treatment and care among underserved populations worldwide. These awardees will join 137 previously funded pilots in 42 countries, bringing the total to $4.1 million in 45 countries. Since the program launched, awardees have leveraged their projects for an additional $16.1 million investment directly related to their pilot projects. The visionary work of the awardees has led to a total of more than $93.5 million to further advancements of dementia-related resources.

A foundation that chooses to remain anonymous continues to partner with the Association on a collaboration that links funding team science through ongoing consortia and open call requests for applications in different emerging science areas. In FY24, the partnership, called the AD Strategic Fund, awarded over $7 million to team science collaborative projects. The partnership will continue its work in FY25 with additional funding in focused programs and open collaborative projects. In addition, the AD Strategic Fund funded five continuation awards to better dissect and understand the biological underpinnings of APOE in Alzheimer's.

The Association furthers therapeutic development through the Tau Pipeline Enabling Program partnership with the Rainwater Charitable Foundation. In FY24, the Association and the foundation funded five new studies, totaling nearly $4 million, bringing the total investment in tau-related drug discovery and drug development projects by the two partners to $14.6 million. All new studies are directed toward a unique aspect of tau biology and utilize a diverse array of therapies. 

In a new funding program with the American Society of Neuroradiology, we launched a pilot funding program with three new joint awards. The partnership, which was recognized at the society's annual meeting, will continue in FY25.

The Association continued to provide leadership and support for New IDEAS: Imaging Dementia — Evidence for Amyloid Scanning Study, alongside the American College of Radiology (ACR), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) and recruitment experts from Vanderbilt University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The New IDEAS Study leadership team announced the decision to end new recruitment in March 2024, after considering the feasibility of the study against new structural barriers presented by CMS' retirement of the National Coverage with Evidence Development (CED) of amyloid PET scans. New IDEAS represents one of the largest datasets of its kind and is an important milestone in Alzheimer's research, prioritizing inclusion of patients who self-identify as Black/African American and Hispanic/Latinx, populations that share the greatest burden of dementia. 

The Alzheimer's Association International Conference (AAIC), the largest forum to advance dementia science and clinical practice, is where top researchers from across the globe meet to share discoveries and collaborate. More than 11,000 members of the dementia research community from over 100 countries convened at AAIC 2023 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and online, including more than 7,500 in person. Groundbreaking research presented at AAIC 2023 included findings on the impact of hearing aids on cognitive decline; a correlation between opioid use and death in older adults with dementia; the potential for CRISPR/gene editing technology to improve Alzheimer's treatment options; the relationship between constipation and cognitive aging; and a variety of updates on advancements in diagnosis, treatments and clinical trials. 

The Association continued to expand its global reach through a growing portfolio of scientific meetings. The NIA and the Association supported the 6th Annual NIA-AA Symposium on Enabling Precision Medicine for Alzheimer's Disease Through Open Science as part of AAIC 2023 preconference offerings. Convening over 200 members of the research community, the meeting was a valuable opportunity to learn and share developments in precision medicine principles and open science practices. 

AAIC Neuroscience Next showcased the work of neuroscience students, postdoctoral researchers and early career research professionals worldwide in a unique "hybrid hub" model. More than 2,500 registrants from 88 countries gathered online to learn from and support the next generation of researchers. 

The AAIC Satellite Symposium in Cape Town, South Africa, and online brought together more than 360 researchers to discuss research advances in public health, diagnosis and treatment within Africa. Fifty percent of attendees were based in low- and middle-income countries. 

The Tau2024 Global Conference, held in partnership by the Alzheimer's Association, CurePSP and The Rainwater Charitable Foundation, convened leading global researchers from academia, industry and government to explore the latest findings in tau research and increase interdisciplinary alignment and collaboration around challenges. Nearly 1,200 researchers gathered in Washington, D.C., and online.

The fourth Latinos and Alzheimer's Symposium in San Diego and online brought together more than 500 researchers, clinicians and dementia care professionals who work with Hispanic and Latino/a/e/x populations to examine challenges including underrepresentation in clinical trials, barriers to care and the impact of biomarkers on treatment options.

The AAIC Advancements: Toward Health Equity in Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD) conference, held in San Antonio and online in FY24, works to support vital health equity in Alzheimer's research and drive collaboration across the dementia science field among researchers at all career stages. The meeting attracted more than 1,000 participants from over 60 countries.

The Southeastern Neurodegenerative Disease Conference (SENDCon) in Atlanta convened more than 500 researchers based in the southeastern United States and Puerto Rico to build a network of collaboration around the study of neurodegenerative disorders.

The Association, the American College of Radiology, the American Society of Neuroradiology, the Department of Biostatistics, Brown University School of Public Health and the ALZ-NET Project Team, along with other clinical research experts, continued to collaborate on the Alzheimer's Network for Treatment and Diagnostics (ALZ-NET). Led by the Association, which provided the initial funding, ALZ-NET is designed to collect routine clinical practice data from health care professionals caring for people living with Alzheimer's who are taking an FDA-approved disease-modifying treatment, with a goal of quickly and transparently sharing data and outcomes. At the conclusion of the fiscal year, ALZ-NET had over 200 clinical sites in various stages of the startup process — including 60 fully active sites with over 600 patients enrolled — and is also aligning with international registry efforts across 11 other countries.

ALZ-NET is designed to work collaboratively with affiliated studies, including those conducted by academia, industry, federal agencies and ALZ-NET project teams. In FY24, ALZ-NET was approved by CMS as a Coverage with Evidence Development (CED) study and can be used as a pathway to Medicare coverage for anti-amyloid Alzheimer's therapies that have received traditional FDA approval. 

ALZ-NET International continued to connect ALZ-NET with real-world data platforms globally, providing opportunities to share resources, exchange ideas and amplify impact. ALZ-NET International partners meet quarterly to share updates and initiatives, including at AAIC. Countries represented at the meetings included Australia, Germany, Iceland, Japan, Netherlands, South Korea, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United States.

The Association announced the Global Real-World Data Platforms Program (ALZ-RWD) — a funding program to support the advancement of and opportunities for real-world data (RWD) platforms and bridging to ALZ-NET. This peer-reviewed funding program will augment and accelerate global initiatives aimed at developing, expanding and aligning RWD platforms' infrastructure, data and impact. It was launched in October 2023 and received six full applications for review and adjudication for funding in early FY25.

The Alzheimer's Association Clinical Meaningfulness Workgroup, formed in 2022 as part of the Association's efforts to provide resources for clinicians about the benefits and risks of FDA-approved amyloid-targeting therapies for Alzheimer's, published in October 2024 recommendations and suggested language to help health care providers explain newly approved Alzheimer's treatments to patients and caregivers.

"Revised Criteria for Diagnosis and Staging of Alzheimer's Disease" was published June 2024 in Alzheimer's & Dementia®: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association, with corresponding commentaries published in Nature Medicine and Nature Aging. The 2024 version built off of the 2011 National Institute on Aging and Alzheimer's Association (NIA-AA) clinical guidance and 2018 NIA-AA research framework. The new criteria aim to improve current diagnosis, including accuracy; provide context for a biological definition that will inform the next generation of clinical trials; and lay a foundation that moves us toward personalized approaches for Alzheimer's treatment that are rooted in biology.​

The Association announced an investment of $10.85 million to the EQT Life Sciences' LSP Dementia Fund, an international venture capital fund that invests in companies developing promising, high-impact treatments for Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases. In another example of how the Association is accelerating innovation in dementia research, the commitment expands its funding into broader and varied areas of drug development to advance and diversify the research pipeline and available treatments for people living with Alzheimer's or another dementia. 

The third Alzheimer's Association Interdisciplinary Summer Research Institute provided a free, immersive opportunity for early career researchers in psychosocial care and public health to launch a career in dementia science and accelerate breakthroughs. Throughout the five-day program, which featured faculty from the Association, 24 attendees — 36% of whom represented a diverse population — learned from experts through group sessions and individual mentoring. 

TrialMatch® is the Association's free service offering customized lists of clinical studies based on user-provided information. The TrialMatch database has over 3,000 users per month and includes more than 900 clinical trials, including New IDEAS, LEADS, and international studies and locations. In FY24, TrialMatch had 56,440 unique web views, nearly 40,000 online sessions, 3,170 web-based referrals and over 8,400 calls. 

The Alzheimer's Association Research Roundtable (AARR) engages scientists from the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, diagnostics, imaging and cognitive testing industries worldwide in a precompetitive platform to discuss key areas in Alzheimer's science, with a mission of advancing the research, development and management of new treatments. The roundtable met twice in FY24. The fall 2023 meeting was titled Application of Revised ATN Classification: Drug Development & Clinical Practice, and the spring 2024 meeting was titled System Readiness and the Patient Care Pathway for Alzheimer's Disease Diagnosis and Treatment. Each was attended by over 150 attendees, including scientific leaders from the AARR membership, academia, the NIH, FDA and other global government agencies. 

For the eighth year, the Alzheimer's Association Business Consortium (AABC) continued to advance Alzheimer's and dementia research through innovation by small, startup biotechnology, diagnostic and contract research organizations. The AABC works to achieve its goals by focusing on areas of common interest to advance the field as well as the goals of its more than 50 member companies. The AABC hosted its annual in-person meeting during AAIC in Amsterdam, with over 20 member companies represented. 

In part due to advocacy of the Association and the separately incorporated Alzheimer's Impact Movement (AIM), CMS expanded coverage of brain amyloid positron emission tomography (PET) imaging for the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. The new policy will remove unnecessary barriers to this important diagnostic and patient safety tool.

The Association continued to champion new treatments, celebrating the FDA's traditional approval of lecanemab (Leqembi®) for the treatment of early Alzheimer's disease with confirmation of elevated beta-amyloid. This was the first traditional approval of an Alzheimer's treatment that changes the underlying course of the disease.

The Alzheimer's Association International Society to Advance Alzheimer's Research and Treatment (ISTAART) is a diverse global network of over 13,000 scientists, clinicians and dementia professionals in more than 120 countries. ISTAART professional interest areas (PIAs) — subgroups of researchers who share common scientific interests — engaged with their members through 122 webinars and networking sessions, which received over 6,700 live views; published 19 journal articles; and contributed 15 featured research sessions to AAIC 2023. In addition, the FY24 ISTAART Ambassador cohort included 31 ambassadors from 14 countries who delivered the "Introduction to ISTAART" presentation to over 1,700 scientists, clinicians and dementia professionals worldwide. 

The Alzheimer's & Dementia journal family comprises four open access journals: Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association (A&D), our flagship journal; Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment and Disease Monitoring (DADM); Alzheimer's & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions (TRCI); and the newest addition, Alzheimer's & Dementia: Behavior and Socioeconomics of Aging. (The latter journal will publish its first issue in winter/spring 2025.) The A&D family of journals aims to bridge knowledge gaps across a wide range of bench-to-bedside investigations in Alzheimer's, dementia and related topics. The impact factor, which is a measure of how frequently publications in the journal are referenced by other papers, are: A&D (13), DADM (4) and TRCI (4.9). Higher impact factors indicate a journal is more frequently cited and included in other research. Our flagship journal continues to be the top-ranked disease-specific journal in clinical neurology.

Funded by the Association, GAAIN is the first online platform to provide free, instant access to data normally restricted to a handful of Alzheimer's researchers, uniting a diverse and geographically distributed network of partners to foster discovery, collaboration and sharing. With more than 36,000 unique data attributes linking together over 70 research studies with over 710,000 participants, GAAIN serves as a one-of-a-kind resource for the global Alzheimer's and dementia community. In FY24, data from the IDEAS (Imaging Dementia—Evidence for Amyloid Scanning) Study were made available on GAAIN.

Association President and CEO Joanne Pike, DrPH, was elected vice chair of the World Dementia Council. In this leadership role, Pike helps advance the organization's global efforts to improve the lives of people affected by dementia, which include supporting Alzheimer's and dementia research and securing equitable access to treatments.