The UK government has announced nearly £50m in funding to go towards expanding the number of dementia research sites across the UK.
The new funding will give more people the opportunity to take part in clinical trials to discover a cure for the disease that causes dementia.
The Dementia Translational Collaboration Trials Network (D-TRC-TN), an initiative run by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), will use the £49.9m in funding to offer more people with dementia the ability to take part in early-phase clinical trials.
Affecting more than 944,000 people in the UK, dementia is a general term for the impaired ability to think, remember or make decisions on a day-to-day basis.
Working within the network of NIHR Biomedical Research Centres (BRCs), the D-TRC-TN works with industry, academics and partners with research programmes to accelerate and improve the diagnosis and treatment of dementia.
This will help “accelerate therapy development for dementia, enable participation for all regardless of location or demographic and reframe the UK as the ‘go-to’ place for gold standard conduct of early phase trials,” explained Dr Catherine Mummery, dementia researcher, NIHR BRC at University College London Hospitals and head of the NIHR D-TRC-TN.
The D-TRC-TN aims to accelerate the set-up and regulatory processes of dementia trials; increase industry engagement for early phase trials; enhance recruitment, support and diversity; and increase capacity and expertise, as well as the number of people with dementia in the UK who can participate.
In alignment with the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Mission, a government initiative will help to accelerate the set-up and delivery of clinical trials.
Later this year, an open, transparent application process will become available for selecting where and when the new research sites will be opening.
David Thomas, head of policy, Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: “Accelerating clinical research is a central part of our strategy for a cure for the diseases that cause dementia.”
Professor Lucy Chappell, chief executive, NIHR, said that the “Trials Network will help extend life-changing access to dementia research and make a huge contribution to our scientific understanding of this disease”.