US boosts funding for Alzheimer's research

The administration of US President Barack Obama announced on Tuesday it will boost funding for research into Alzheimer's disease by $130 million, a 25 percent increase over the next two years.

Leading health officials said an extra $50 million would be made available immediately for cutting-edge Alzheimer's research and that the fiscal year 2013 budget to be released next week would aim to boost such funding by $80 million.

An additional $26 million will also be allocated to "caregiver support, provider education, public awareness and improvements in data infrastructure," officials said.

"We can't wait to confront the growing threat that Alzheimer's disease poses to American families and to our nation as a whole," said Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

"The time for bold action on the growing public health challenge posed by Alzheimer's is right now," she told reporters.

Some 5.1 million Americans currently suffer from Alzheimer's disease, a degenerative brain disorder for which there is no cure.

Due to the aging population, the number of people with Alzheimer's disease in the United States is projected to more than double by 2050.

National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins told reporters that important clues about Alzheimer's have been uncovered over the past 40 years, but progress toward eliminating the disease has been difficult.

"To be honest, turning these advances into effective strategies for treatment and prevention has proven very challenging and elusive, a frustrating situation for researchers and patients alike," he said.

"But we now have cause for greater optimism."

Collins described recent advances in research, including an NIH-funded study on mice released last week month that showed Alzheimer's starts in one part of the brain in the memory center and progressively moves on to infect other parts.

"It has generated a lot of excitement among those working on treatments. Why is that? It means that if we detect Alzheimer's early we might be able to stop the disease in its tracks by applying agents that can block its spread," he said.

"Thanks to the new infusion of funds announced today, I think Alzheimer's research is poised for some great discoveries."

NIH spends about $450 million a year on Alzheimer's research at present.

The new funds will be directed toward basic and clinical research, identifying genes that raise the risk of Alzheimer's disease and testing therapies in people at high risk for the disease, officials said.

Funds may also help speed new clinical trials on treatment approaches and help develop better national databases on the extent of cognitive impairment and dementia.

Last year, Obama signed the National Alzheimer's Project Act which urges a country-wide plan against the disease with the goal of preventing it and curing it by 2025.

Experts said the effort is particularly crucial in the United States, where the proportion of older people is on the rise with 9,000 people turning 65 every day, and costs associated with Alzheimer's expected to reach three trillion dollars over the next decade.

"We're racing against the clock to advance a solution to this crisis from both cure and care standpoints," said Alzheimer's Foundation of America president Eric Hall.

"Our aging population can't wait any longer. This type of investment is critical so that it doesn't cost the government, as well as families, more in the long run."

Scott Turner, director of the Georgetown University Medical Center's Memory Disorders Program, said the announcement was "encouraging" but added "this disease remains by far the most underfunded when compared to its public health impact."

George Vradenburg, co-founder and chairman of the group USAgainstAlzheimer's, urged lawmakers to make Alzheimer's a priority, noting the US only spends annually about $90 per person with the disease.

"This increase in funding is a modest first step. We intend to work with Congress to mobilize the scale of resources needed to match the scale of the fiscal and health challenge of stopping Alzheimer's in the next decade," he said.

"We have just begun this fight against Alzheimer's in earnest; we have a long way to go."

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Obama boosts funds for Alzheimer's research

(Reuters) - The Obama administration plans to spend an additional $156 million over the next two years to help find an effective treatment for Alzheimer's, a fatal brain-wasting disease that affects more than 5 million Americans.

The White House said on Tuesday it will spend and extra $50 million this year, and it will seek an extra $80 million in fiscal 2013 to bolster Alzheimer's research. Obama also plans to spend an additional $26 million in programs to support people who care for Alzheimer's patients.

The spending increase is intended help make good on a U.S. target set last month to find a way to treat or prevent Alzheimer's by 2025, a goal some experts fear is too ambitious.

Current drugs help manage symptoms but so far no therapy can stop the progression of Alzheimer's, which can start with vague memory loss and confusion before progressing to complete disability and death.

Experts predict that without an effective treatment, the number of Americans with Alzheimer's will double by 2050 and related healthcare costs could soar to more than $1 trillion a year.

These projections are simply staggering," National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins said in a statement. "This new funding will accelerate NIH's effort to use the power of science to develop new ways of helping people with Alzheimer's disease and those at risk."

The $50 million cash infusion this year brings the U.S. Alzheimer's research budget to half a billion dollars, an improvement, advocates say, but still far short of what the nation spends on other chronic diseases.

The spending will support the nation's first comprehensive plan to fight Alzheimer's disease, an effort mandated by the National Alzheimer's Project Act signed into law by President Barack Obama last year.

The project will coordinate government-wide efforts to prevent and treat the disease and create a national strategy for Alzheimer's.

Australia, France and South Korea already have comprehensive Alzheimer's plans, and global experts have been urging the United States to take a leadership role.

"Today's announcement reflects this administration's commitment to confronting Alzheimer's, a disease that takes a devastating toll on millions of Americans," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement.

So far, U.S. investment in the search for Alzheimer's treatments has fallen short of what the nation spends on other chronic diseases, such as cancer and heart disease.

Roughly $6 billion is spent each year by the NIH on cancer, which affects about 12 million Americans, and more than $4 billion on heart disease, which kills more than 800,000 nationally each year.

Alzheimer's advocates advising the HHS on its research strategy have said it will take as much as $2 billion a year in research funding to make a significant difference in finding an effective treatment.

"This infusion of funds is important," said Harry Johns, president and CEO of the Alzheimer's Association, who called the disease "the public health crisis of this century."

Dr. Ronald Petersen, a Mayo Clinic researcher who chairs the HHS Advisory Council on Alzheimer's Research, said he sees the announcement as a good faith gesture by the administration.

"In these times, one could not realistically expect a billion or 2 billion dollars to be allocated in next year's budget," Petersen told Reuters.

But over the long haul, he said it will take a significant amount of funds to meet that target.

(Reporting By Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Bill Trott and Jackie Frank)

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