Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation and Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative Announce New Partnership to Accelerate Novel Diagnostic and Biomarker Development

With the advancement of Alzheimer’s research, there is a pressing need to develop a central source for data storage and sharing

NEW YORK—September 27, 2023—The Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) announced today a new partnership through its Diagnostics Accelerator (DxA) with the Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative (ADDI), which will facilitate the sharing of Alzheimer’s research data through the ADDI’s data sharing and analysis platform, the AD Workbench. The aim of this partnership is to encourage and enable ADDF-funded researchers to leverage the AD Workbench to fast-track the development of new and novel diagnostics and biomarkers by providing broader access to large datasets.

Technology-based diagnostics companies regularly generate large amounts of data to develop biomarkers. Often, this data is only utilized for a singular purpose, but there is the potential to repurpose these large datasets to analyze and measure multiple metrics. By enabling access to these datasets, the AD Workbench will reduce redundancy, slow the collection of unused data, and decrease the number of patient participants needed to glean statistically significant insights.

“The ADDF firmly believes that timely disease intervention requires an early and accurate Alzheimer’s diagnosis, which was the impetus for the Diagnostics Accelerator,” says Howard Fillit, MD, Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer at the ADDF. “This partnership will build on the robust diagnostics portfolio the accelerator has built by offering new ways to streamline biomarker development and commercialization, which is crucial for developing the next generation of Alzheimer’s therapeutics.” 

In 2018, Leonard A. Lauder, Co-Chairman and Co-Founder of the ADDF, and Bill Gates launched the Diagnostics Accelerator with other leading philanthropists, including Jeff Bezos, MacKenzie Scott, the Dolby family, and more, to fast track the development of diagnostic tools to aid with the early detection and diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. The DxA is now a $100 million global research initiative that is leading the advancement of accessible and non-invasive biomarkers such as blood tests, eye scans and digital tools. 

As new drugs come to market and progress through the drug pipeline, novel biomarkers will continue to play a profound role in measuring target engagement and trial enrollment, but there is still more work to be done in identifying new and novel biomarkers. Similarly, as artificial intelligence and machine learning are increasingly leveraged for diagnostics development, more data is being generated, creating the potential for lengthy data analysis that can hinder innovative research. By creating a centralized source for Alzheimer’s data, researchers will have the ability to develop the necessary diagnostic tools more quickly.

“Providing a platform to store and share big data on Alzheimer’s diagnostics research presents great opportunities for researchers to work together and repurpose data to uncover more valuable insights from it,” notes Tetsuyuki Maruyama, PhD, Executive Director at the ADDI. “This initiative will help democratize the data now being generated from breakthrough research, which we expect will fuel the next wave of important new findings.”