US National Alzheimer’s Project Plans Announced

At the beginning of the year, Pharmaceutical International reported on the launch of the US Government's massive new push to discover the ultimate Alzheimer's drug.

On 15 May 2012, the National Alzheimer's Plan was finalised by the Obama administration, bullet-pointing the strategies set to be adopted to try and counter the effects of this most debilitating disease on elderly members of US society.

To start with, a new website's just been made live - www.alzheimers.gov - offering straightforward and easily-digestible data on dementia and local support resources.

National Alzheimer's Project

Among the National Alzheimer's Project's other plans are the study of a nasal spray that streams insulin into the nose. Initials trials of this spray indicate that it could make a real difference and, consequently, no less than $8m is set be made available to test it further. The spray's foundations lie in the mounting evidence that links Alzheimer's to diabetes and, significantly, its contents can reach the brain without interfering with blood-sugars.

Meanwhile, the US National Institutes of Health is making $16m available to another drug development programme - this one involving a product that can take on amyloids: protein aggregates thought to play a part in over 20 human conditions, including Alzheimer's.

Separately, the US Government is to start giving doctors and other medical professionals fresh new Alzheimer's care advice, to be syndicated out to those with the disease and their relatives.

US Alzheimer's Project Plans

The advent of this array of new Alzheimer's findings, according to the US National Institutes of Health's director, Doctor Francis Collin, has generated a "sense of optimism". However, Collins added, next in the US Alzheimer's Project's plans is calculating "exactly where is the best window of opportunity."

Alzheimer's - or a form of dementia related to Alzheimer's - currently affects an estimated 5.4 million US residents. That figure's presently predicted to rise to a maximum of 16 million over the next four decades. Detrimental to those that have it and, of course, those charged with looking after them, the scenario also involves huge costs.

Finding an Alzheimer's treatment or cure - and putting a timeline on this search - is therefore seen by many as an essential pursuit. Pharmaceutical International will recover the National Alzheimer's Plan in future News Items.