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Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals

Updated 16 December 2025

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What we do

Dementia is the leading cause of death in England and one in two people will be directly affected by it - either they will care for someone with the condition, develop it themselves, or both. It also has a high social cost, with around £34.7 billion a year currently spent on healthcare, social care and informal care. Annual costs are predicted to rise to over £94 billion by 2040.

On 14 August 2022, the government first launched the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals. The programme now has up to £150 million expected to be allocated to, or aligned with it and is co-chaired by Hilary Evans-Newton and Nadeem Sarwar.

Reiterated through the government’s ambitions set out in the 10 Year Health Plan and Life Sciences Sector Plan, the programme aims to realise a new generation of precision dementia therapies and solutions for the UK – by accelerating innovations in biomarkers, clinical trials and implementation.

The programme is setting up the Neurodegeneration Initiative (NI), led by interim CEO Jessamy Baird, MBE. This will be a globally unique, not-for-profit, industry led public-private partnership with charitable status, that will work together across government, industry, academia, the NHS and third sector, and will deliver the Dementia Goals programme objectives around developing innovations in biomarkers, data and digital sciences, increasing the number and speed of clinical trials in dementia and neurodegeneration and supporting the regulators and health system on implementation. This will enable faster set-up and running of clinical trials to ensure more new treatments are developed and made available to patients sooner than otherwise. More information can be found on the NI’s website.

So far, via Innovate UK, the Dementia Goals programme has:

  • Provided ten projects with a share of £6 million to accelerate innovations in dementia biomarker detection to transform clinical trials and precision therapies.
  • Awarded four UK companies a share of £4.8 million to enable organisations to evaluate blood-based and digital biomarkers as part of the Bio-Hermes-002 study, an international study led by the Global Alzheimer’s Platform Foundation® (GAP).
  • Committed to investing £2 million into adding a digital cognitive test as a bolt-on to the READ-OUT study, which aims to capitalise on recent breakthroughs in potential dementia blood tests, and generate the evidence needed for them to be validated for use in the NHS within the next 5 years.

The programme has also launched an £18 million funding call for experimental medicine through the Medical Research Council, to define new mechanisms of neurodegeneration. Projects funded through this opportunity will work with the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme to support progress against its ambitions and to identify and exploit synergies across relevant investments in the landscape.

The programme also supports:

  • The Medical Research Council’s £20 million investment into a Dementia Trials Accelerator which aims to embed more innovation in how clinical trials are designed and delivered in order to increase the speed and quality, while driving down the cost of large-scale trials. This is being led by Health Data Research UK and the UK Dementia Research Institute.
  • NIHR’s aligned investment of up to £50 million into the UK Dementia Trials Network (UKDTN),  which seeks to speed up early-stage clinical trials.

Links to the announcements of these investments can be found in the links at the bottom of this page.

Who we are

The Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme is co-chaired by Hilary Evans-Newton and Nadeem Sarwar.

Hilary Evans, Co-Chair of the Dementia Goals.

Hilary Evans-Newton is the Chief Executive of Alzheimer’s Research UK, where she has led the transformation of the charity to one of the leading medical research charities in the UK, and the largest charitable funder of dementia research in Europe.  She has overseen a significant growth in income, enhancing Alzheimer’s Research UK’s ability to fund innovative projects. Under her leadership Alzheimer’s Research UK has focused on ground-breaking projects that unite charity, academic and private sectors to drive forward progress towards a treatment for the diseases that cause dementia. With Hilary at the helm, the charity has set up the pioneering Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Alliance, helped develop and launch the Dementia Discovery Fund, UK Dementia Research Institute and established global collaborations with other funders and institutions.

Nadeem Sarwar, Co-Chair of the Dementia Goals.

Professor Nadeem Sarwar has held various leadership positions at leading global pharmaceutical firms - across drug discovery, human genetics and digital technologies – and is an Honorary Professor at the School of Medicine, University of Edinburgh. His expertise stems from the intersection of genomics, data sciences and digital technologies to drive therapeutic innovation. He previously served as the Co-Founder and Head of The Transformational Prevention Unit at Novo Nordisk, the Global Head, Genomic Strategies & Global Head, Digital Strategies at Eisai, and was the Founder and President of the Eisai Centre for Genetics Guided Dementia Discovery (G2D2). He has senior experience in academia (Cambridge, Edinburgh), pharma (Pfizer, Eisai), Biotech (G2D2), and company incubation (Eisai Biolabs); he has successfully built and led research teams across the UK, US and Japan; and has contributed to delivery of therapeutics into clinical trials for cardiometabolic disease, immunology, oncology, COVID-19 and neurodegeneration. He has contributed to the leadership of several international and multi-sector collaborations and partnerships. In 2022, Nadeem was elected to the UK Medical Research Council Neurosciences and Mental Health Board.

The Neurodegeneration Initiative is led by Jessamy Baird, MBE, as interim CEO, and supported by an expert scientific and operational team, bringing experience from the dementia field and life sciences and start up sectors. Jessamy brings a wealth of experience in healthcare and the Life Sciences industry, with her most recent role as General Manager and Country Lead for Sanofi UK & Ireland, where she drove scientific advancements, improved patient outcomes, and shaped the future of healthcare. Jessamy has also been a Board Director and Vice President for the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), and Chair of the European Medicines Group (EMG). Jessamy’s leadership and contributions to the industry were recognised in 2024 when she was awarded an MBE for services to healthcare innovation. Jessamy’s career has spanned the pharmaceutical industry, academia and the NHS and she is passionate about bringing benefit to the people and patients we serve. Jessamy has held Non-Executive Board level roles in the NHS for over 10 years across a variety of NHS organisations; Mental Health, Community Care and Learning Disability NHS Trusts as well as those involved in commissioning services for people in primary and secondary care across Hampshire.

The programme is advised by several expert advisors and advisory forums:

  • A world-leading Scientific Advisory Board with global scientific, clinical and regulatory expert members who provide strategic advice on the Dementia Goals’ scientific plan and priorities. This is chaired by Dr Ruth McKernan,  a neuroscientist with a distinguished career in both the public and private sector. She is currently an Operating Partner at SV Health Investors and the Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF) and is a Trustee of Alzheimer’s Research UK.  She is a co-founder of 5 Biotech companies including AstronauTx, Cumulus Neuroscience and Draig Therapeutics. Ruth was previously the Chief Executive Officer of Innovate UK and a Council Member for the Medical Research Council. She has 25 years of research and development experience in the pharmaceutical industry including heading Pfizer’s Discovery Technology Centre in Boston and leading the Sandwich site in the UK. Prior to that she was Head of the Merck Neuroscience Research Centre.
  • A People’s Forum will ensure that unmet needs of individuals and caregivers – as defined by them – are met through proactive engagement, partnership and transparency. This is chaired by the programme’s People’s Champion, Scott Mitchell, husband of the late Dame Barbara Windsor, after whom the Dementia Goals programme is named. Scott has made a profound contribution to the nation’s awareness of dementia, as a vocal advocate for both research and care alongside Barbara. He was an ambassador for Alzheimer’s Research UK between 2021 and 2025, where he raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for vital dementia research, as well as working with other dementia charities in the sector to raise awareness.
  • A System Partners Engagement Forum, which is working with system partners to provide effective readiness and strategic guidance for supporting implementation for new treatments for dementia diseases. This is chaired by Raj Long, who is a distinguished senior executive with over 35 years’ experience in regulatory strategy, clinical development, and accelerating access to medicines. Raj has held senior executive positions within the pharmaceutical industry and has served as a strategic advisor to leading organisations including the UK Department of Health & Social Care, the European Union, the Gates Foundation, and the World Health Organisation (WHO). Currently, Raj serves as a Non-Executive Director on the Board of the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and as Associate Executive Director at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). Raj is also listed as an EU ECAS Expert.  With a unique blend of private and public sector expertise, Raj brings a strategic perspective that bridges industry and public health, enabling the integration of medical product development and implementation across sectors.

Contact details

You can contact the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals by email: dementiagoals@officeforlifesciences.gov.uk.

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