Combat diseases of the aging brain

Purpose and goal

Diseases of the aging brain severely impact the affected individuals, their families, the health care system and the society. The economic burden of stroke, Alzheimer´s disease and Parkinson´s disease is estimated in Sweden alone to amount to 80 billion SEK annually. With the population aging, these costs will dramatically increase leading to health crisis. The goal of the project was to map the current eco-system, to formulate a daring but achievable vision, and to identify the key transformations that will lead to system innovation needed to achieve the vision.

Expected results and effects

Our vision: Reduce the burden of the diseases of aging brain by creating an ecosystem that will enhance the implementation of preventive measures and facilitate the flow from innovative drugs to novel treatments. The transformations will lead to 1. Improved pipeline for the development of novel treatment strategies for diseases of aging brain 2. Transformed clinical trial infrastructure and novel patient recruitment strategy with a central integrated patient cohort register 3. Novel prevention measures to control and reduce disease risk factors

Planned approach and implementation

We mapped the existing eco-system and together with stakeholders identified key transformations: 1. Development of novel funding instruments and infrastructure to bridge the gap between academic research and pharmaceutical/biotech industry and to facilitate the translation of discoveries into treatments and early diagnostics 2. Clinical trial infrastructure, patient identification and recruitment 3. Nation-wide implementation of new prevention programs 4. Large-scale data acquisition and analysis to identify risk factors/predictors of treatment response