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Billionaire Bill Gates announced he is going to invest US$50m private money into the Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF) to support fresh ideas for developing Alzheimer drugs and diagnostics. The venture capital fund, which kicked off in 2015, includes investors such as GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Pfizer and Biogen Idec as well as the UK government.
As common approaches targeting amyloid beta petides, which clump to form Alzheimer plaques, or tau protein, which forms tau tangles, have failed, the investment will be directed to „less mainstream ideas“, Gates posted on the Internet. The money will be invested in projects that aim to improve the understanding of disease etiology and support drug development against novel targets. Furthermore, he wants to improve patient enrolment for clinical trials, and Alzheimer’s diagnostics. The devasting brain disease today affects nearly 50 million people worldwide.
Gates told Reuters that he wants to put additional US$50m into start-up companies following “less mainstream” approaches to target the disease.
Alongside the US$50m investment in DDF and the additional US$50m for start-ups, Gates will support a global dementia data platform shared by industry and academia to foster collaboration in the field. .“My background at Microsoft and my (Gates) Foundation background say to me that a data-driven contribution might be an area where I can help add some value,” he said.
https://european-biotechnology.com/up-to-date/latest-news/news/bill-gates-invests-into-alzheimers-rd.html
