A philanthropic venture dedicated to speeding-up the discovery of drugs to prevent, treat, and cure Alzheimer’s and other dementias, has received a $200m boost from the billionaire family of the late beauty mogul Estee Lauder.
Ms Lauder’s sons, along with four of her grandchildren, have pledged the money to the non-profit Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation the family founded 25 years ago in the cosmetic giant’s honour.
It is the largest gift ever given to the ADDF – underpinning the Lauder family’s dedication to curing Alzheimer’s.
Ms Lauder, who died of heart failure in 2004 at the age of 97, battled the disease in her later life.
Now her sons, Leonard and Ronald Lauder, along with the entire third generation of their family, are stepping up their efforts to bring drugs to market quicker alongside tools to diagnose and prevent a disease which affects an estimated 50 million worldwide.
Leonard Lauder, co-chairman and co-founder of the ADDF, said: “Alzheimer’s disease doesn’t affect just one person, it impacts entire families. That is why this family gift sets the stage for the next generation to tackle and ultimately end this devastating disease.
“We are seeing important progress, and we feel confident that this gift will build on the current momentum to cure Alzheimer’s disease.”
Alzheimer’s gradually attacks areas of the brain needed for memory, communication, reasoning, and daily tasks. Despite years of research, it is not yet known exactly how the disease forms, but one theory is that the build-up of a protein called amyloid plays a key role.
In January this year a new drug, Leqembi, that’s been convincingly shown to slow cognitive decline, was given the go ahead on an accelerated approval pathway by the US regulator, the Food and Drug Administration.
It works with the body’s immune system to clear amyloid protein build up from the brains of people living with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease.
An application has now been submitted to the European Medicines Agency for approval in the EU.
The Lauder family’s gift comes at a critical time with new advances in diagnostic tools also being made, such as the Amyvid PET scan, that have revolutionised Alzheimer’s research, making clinical trials more accurate and efficient.
The ADDF provided early funding for the scan, which played a crucial role in getting several anti-amyloid therapies across the finish line by tracking their ability to clear the protein.
Ronald Lauder, co-chairman and co-founder of the ADDF, said: “When my brother and I began this project 25 years ago, there was little hope on the horizon for Alzheimer’s disease.
“We are proud of the undeniable impact the ADDF has made over the past two decades and we are more confident than ever for the future. As this research continues to progress, we will have prevention programmes to slow this disease before it begins, diagnostic tools to tell us what each person’s disease looks like, and effective treatments to eradicate it for future generations.”
The ADDF will receive the $200m over the coming decade and is expected to distribute the cash in grants over the next 15 years. Through the generosity of its donors – who have also included Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott – the ADDF has already awarded nearly $250m to fund over 720 Alzheimer’s drug discovery and biomarker programmes and clinical trials in 19 countries.
The next step for the ADDF is to help bring to market a new generation of drugs that are based on an understanding of the biology of ageing that can be used in combination with anti-amyloid therapies to stop Alzheimer’s in its tracks.
This work is already well under way, with 75% of the clinical trials in today’s robust and diverse drug pipeline aimed at novel targets. The Lauder family gift will fuel the ADDF to advance this next generation of drugs more quickly by allowing the organisation to explore the full potential of the current pipeline and move the most promising research forward.
Novel biomarkers will be key to developing personalised approaches that tailor drug combinations to each patient’s unique disease pathology, improving clinical trial designs and allowing researchers to identify who will benefit most from which drugs.
Dr Howard Fillit, co-founder and Chief Science Officer of the ADDF, said: “Many of the most promising treatments being studied right now are based on our understanding of the biology of ageing, an approach long supported by the ADDF, which focuses on the many processes that go wrong in the aging brain to cause Alzheimer’s.
“We believe we will conquer this disease using precision medicine approaches that have been successful in preventing and treating other diseases of chronic ageing, such as cancer. The biomarkers being developed by the ADDF’s Diagnostics Accelerator will play a key role, allowing us to pinpoint the best drugs to target the specific causes of each patient’s Alzheimer’s.”
Heather Snyder, a vice president of the Alzheimer’s Association in the US, commented: “The need to invest in research is paramount. Investing in research is how we’re going to understand the underlying biology and translate that to treatment and interventions that will benefit all individuals.”
Her organisation, which has its headquarters in Chicago, currently funds $320m in research projects.
The Lauder dynasty is one of the world’s richest, its wealth coming from the cosmetics empire that Estee and Joseph Lauder founded a year after the end of the Second World War.