Drug companies give up on dementia cure
Drug companies have withdrawn from developing a breakthrough dementia cure, a major report has warned
As life expectancy increases globally, dementia has become a major healthcare problem. Still, the cost of funding has prevented many from making any significant progress in finding a cure for the disease
Research published by the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH) warns of underinvestment in dementia research due to the phenomenal cost. Eli Lilly and Pfizer have seen potential drugs fail, losing hundreds of millions of dollars, but the report cautions the economic and social costs will be far greater if funding is lost.
This situation is described as a funding fatigue among donors and drug companies
Financial and scientific challenges have meant that between 1998 and 2012 there have been 101 failed attempts to develop breakthrough drugs, with the last one introduced more than a decade ago. This situation is described as a funding fatigue among donors and drug companies, who have been cutting their number of active central nervous system programmes in half, thanks to “repeated and costly failures”. A massive change in funding is needed with experts predicting a huge increase in cases expected within a decade.
Speaking in a statement, Professor The Lord Darzi of Denham, Executive Chair of WISH, said: “The social and economic burden of dementia is clear enough today. Yet the future costs to societies and economies will be enormous without significant intervention now to change the course of this global disease”.
The cost of care for the 44 million global dementia sufferers hit an estimated $604bn and the number of sufferers is expected to rise to 135 million by 2050. With the cost of healthcare in the US predicted to reach $1trn by 2050, the prevention of dementia, often dismissed as a common cause of aging, is believed to be the best way to lessen this social and economic burden. The report included private investment as one of a number of new funding options for dementia research, warning that “in the absence of major breakthroughs, dementia will move from a major health challenge to a global economic crisis”.
