The European Platform for Neurodegenerative Diseases (EPND) partnership today announced the launch of EPND+, an independent, non-profit organisation that will take forward the infrastructure, resources and expertise developed through the five-year EPND project.
EPND+ was formally launched by EPND co-Lead Niranjan Bose at the Innovative Health Initiative (IHI) Forum in Brussels, reflecting EPND’s origins as a public-private partnership established by IHI’s predecessor, the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) 2.
Since November 2021, EPND’s 28 partner organisations have addressed a fundamental challenge in neurodegenerative disease research: Europe has a wealth of valuable research data and biological samples, but these resources are dispersed across studies, institutions and countries, making them difficult to find, access and reuse.
EPND’s response to this fragmentation was to develop the EPND Hub, alongside the tools, standards, SOPs and processes needed to support data and biosample discovery, access and sharing.
Today, the Hub connects more than 120 research studies, 126 datasets and 38 biosample collections across 12+ neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). It provides a unified gateway to these resources, underpinned by the AD Data Initiative’s AD Workbench, which provides secure cloud-based infrastructure and a growing range of data analysis tools.
The result is a more integrated and streamlined research pathway, from finding and accessing data and biosamples through to secure analysis and new research outputs.
EPND’s biomarker Case Studies demonstrated this in practice, using samples and data from multiple cohorts and countries to test and refine the infrastructure and processes for sharing. The first three Case Studies used samples and clinical data from 350 participants across ten European cohorts, spanning Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and dementia with Lewy bodies, generating novel datasets that are being shared with the research community through the Hub.
EPND+ turns EPND’s five-year investment into a lasting foundation for future research, allowing its infrastructure, resources and tools to be reused, adapted and scaled by new initiatives.
European research initiatives are already building on this foundation. AD-RIDDLE is making research resources discoverable through EPND as it develops approaches for earlier detection, prevention and diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. ACCESS-AD, launched in 2026, will use EPND infrastructure to support the discovery and sharing of clinical, imaging, biomarker and real-world data to improve timely diagnosis, treatment and monitoring.
EPND+ will continue to operate and develop the EPND Hub, maintaining the materials created during the IMI funding period, as well as providing infrastructure and tools for data and biosample discovery and sharing. As a European legal entity, it can also partner with new research initiatives to provide adaptable Hub infrastructure and practical data-sharing support, tailored to different research communities and disease areas, rather than requiring them to develop these capabilities from scratch.
The EPND project concludes on 31 October 2026, but its infrastructure, resources and mission will continue through EPND+.
Learn more: https://www.epndplus.org/
