IMI Symposium on Alzheimer’s disease drug discovery

Start Date 09/03/2011

On 9 March 2011, IMI held a symposium entitled Public Private Partnerships boost Alzheimer’s disease drug discovery in Barcelona, Spain. The event, which attracted around 75 participants, was an official satellite symposium of the 10th International Conference on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Diseases (AD/PD 2011), one of the most widely-attended scientific meetings in the field.

The event featured presentations showcasing the work of the IMI-funded PharmaCog project, which is working to develop and validate new tools to test candidate drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease and its symptoms in a faster and more sensitive way than is currently possible. Other presentations discussed biomarkers in Alzheimer’s disease, the EU’s support for Alzheimer’s disease research, the key role of public-private partnerships in boosting the discovery of novel treatments, and the activities of the Critical Path Institute regarding the regulatory qualification of biomarkers in Alzheimer's disease.

The agenda and presentations are below. For a full report of the meeting, read the Proceedings

Agenda

From specimen to biomarker? Harmonisation of biobank SOPs in teh discovery of novel candidate biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease (AD)
Rivka Ravid, Brainbank Consultants, the Netherlands

Presymptomatic tests for AD: the search for mechanism
Mony de Leon, Center for Brain Health NYU, US

The Innovative Medicines Initiative: Building new models of collaborative research across Europe
Elisabetta Vaudano, IMI

Why IMI: the industrial perspective
Ejner K. Moltzen, H. Lundbeck A/S, Denmark

EU initiatives in the field of neurodegenerative diseases
Elisabetta Vaudano, IMI

PharmaCog: tackling bottlenecks in AD drug discovery
Mike O’Neill, Eli Lilly & Co. Ltd, UK
Alexandra Auffret, University of Marseille, France
Jean George, Alzheimer’s Europe, Luxembourg

Global regulatory qualification of biomarkers in AD
Marc Cantillon, CAMD, Critical Path Institute, US