On 21 September, the Davos Alzheimer's Collaborative (DAC) announced that it had completed financing for its foundational phase, launching several key initiatives to advance Alzheimer's research, prevention and care.
The DAC is a multi-stakeholder, public-private partnership that was launched at the World Economic Forum meeting in January 2021, aiming to improve the diagnosis and treatment of a disease that affects more than 55 million families worldwide. Since its launch, the DAC has worked on linking, scaling and building on efforts to combat AD across healthcare systems and sectors. It is now headquartered in Switzerland, with IRS 501c3 affiliate status in the US, and has recently completed financing for its foundational phase, obtaining USD25 million commitments from a broad range of stakeholders.
To achieve its vision, the DAC has created a community of experts in six groups that cover three key focus areas: global cohort development, global clinical trial support platform, and healthcare system preparedness. Working with the International One Hundred K+ Cohorts Consortium and other partners, the DAC has linked 12 cohorts spanning Africa, Asia and South America, part of its bid to build a global cohort of one million people who reflect the diversity of AD. To reduce the time and cost, and increase the quality of clinical trials, DAC is working with the Global Alzheimer's Platform to link a network of 90 trial sites in North America with a number of trial sites in Europe, and surveying site capacity across the world. To improve the clinical care of people with or at risk of AD, the DAC is developing partnerships with healthcare systems in different countries, to pilot the use of blood-based biomarkers and technology-enabled methods in the clinic. To build capacity and share learnings, the DAC is hosting "learning laboratories" where flagship healthcare systems can discuss good practice with other health systems, national health ministries and policymakers, supported by technical advice from the World Health Organisation.
George Vradenburg, CEO of the DAC, said: "Now is the time to act on Alzheimer’s. International bodies including the WHO, G7, and G20 have all made commitments in recent years that recognize the need to act together, act globally and act now to address this health crisis. DAC is a response to these calls for action, bringing the speed and scale that has too often been lacking in previous efforts. "
