NIH, Partners Commit $74.9M to New Phase of Alzheimer's Program

Modern Healthcare reports that the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and private-sector partners have pledged nearly $74.9 million to Alzheimer's disease research over the next five years in the just-announced second phase of the Accelerating Medicine Partnership for Alzheimer's Disease (AMP AD) program, known as AMP AD 2.0. Among the technologies the effort will focus on is single-cell profiling and computational modeling to add precision medicine to Alzheimer's treatments. "AMP AD 2.0 aims to add greater precision to the molecular maps developed in the first iteration of this program," declared NIH Director Francis Collins. "This will identify biological targets and biomarkers to inform new therapeutic interventions for specific disease subtypes." The National Institute on Aging will supervise research activities, allocating $61.4 to the initiative over the next five years. Meanwhile, private-sector partners including Eisai, Gates Ventures, Takeda Pharmaceutical, the Alzheimer's Association, and GlaxoSmithKline have committed nearly $13.5 million altogether. The NIH funding will underwrite a data coordination center hosted by Sage Bionetworks, in addition to six cross-disciplinary academic research teams.