Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Mission
Published 4 April 2024
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What we do
Dementia and Neurodegeneration was identified as one of the key healthcare missions in the 2021 Life Sciences Vision.
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 Prime Minister launched the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Mission, along with £95 million of funding. The Mission is part of the wider government commitment to double dementia research funding by 2024/25, to £160 million a year. There is now up to £120 million committed funding to the Mission.
The Mission aims to speed up the development of new treatments for dementia and neurodegenerative conditions. On the 20 March 2023 we announced the appointment of two Co-Chairs of the Mission, Hilary Evans (CEO of Alzheimer’s Research UK) and Nadeem Sarwar (Co-Founder and Head - Transformational Prevention Unit at Novo Nordisk). The Mission will work across the sector, with industry, academia, the NHS and other UK and global initiatives by developing innovations in biomarkers, data and digital sciences, and increasing the number and speed of clinical trials in dementia.
In July 2023, Innovate UK launched an SBRI Innovation Competition, supported by £6 million of government funding, to accelerate innovations in dementia biomarker detection to transform clinical trials and precision therapies. These technologies can be used as clinical tools to enable the biomarker guided development of transformative dementia therapies. The competition closed on 4 September 2023.
In the Autumn Statement in November 2023, the government announced up to £20 million of additional funding for the launch of a Clinical Trials Delivery Accelerator (CTDA) focused on Dementia. This will be delivered by the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Mission and the Medical Research Council (MRC), tying in with the work of the NIHR Dementia Translational Research Collaboration’s Trial Network and other key initiatives. The Dementia Trials Accelerator 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.
In March 2024, the government hosted a roundtable and reception at No.10 Downing Street where charities, academics, investors, business leaders and people with lived experience came together to further accelerate efforts to tackle this devastating illness and to thank all those involved in supporting dementia research, including charities right across the UK.
At this event government made a series of announcements including:
- The appointment of Scott Mitchell as the People’s Champion for the Dementia Mission.
- The appointment of Ruth McKernan as Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Neurodegeneration Initiative.
- The appointment of the Medicines Discovery Catapult as the delivery partner for the establishment of the Neurodegeneration Initiative.
- The award of a share of £6 million funding to ten projects through Innovate UK’s Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) dementia biomarker tools competition.
Further information on these announcements can be found below under documents.
Who we are
The Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Mission is co-chaired by Hilary Evans and Nadeem Sarwar.
Hilary Evans Dementia Mission Co-Chair.
Hilary Evans 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 Dementia Mission Co-Chair.
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 currently serves as Co-Founder and Head of The Transformational Prevention Unit at Novo Nordisk and previously served as 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.
Documents
- Prime Minister launches ‘Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Mission’.
- Announcement of the appointment of the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Mission Co-Chairs: sector leaders to drive progress on national Dame Barbara Windsor Mission to beat dementia.
- Innovate UK SBRI Innovation Competition: Clinical biomarker tools and technologies for dementia.
- Announcement of up to £20 million for the launch of a Clinical Trial Delivery Accelerator focussed on Dementia, now named the Dementia Trials Accelerator.
- 20 March 2024 press release announcing the appointment of the Mission’s Delivery Partner, People’s Champion, SAB Chair, and successful recipients of SBRI competition funding.
Contact details
You can contact the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Mission by email: dementiamission@officeforlifesciences.gov.uk.