Bill Gates in the Alzheimer’s Research and Development World, Very Promising!

Are you caring for a loved one with dementia? You don't have to figure this out all on your own. Welcome to Truth, Lies Alzheimer's, the show that helps you reimagine a new relationship with your loved one, a relationship a little more free of stress and anxiety. Join host Lisa Skinner and her 30+ years of experience as she guides you on a new path to a better relationship with those you care for. Here's Lisa.

Hi everybody. Welcome back to another brand new episode of The Truth Lies in Alzheimer's Show. I am Lisa Skinner, your host, and what I have to share with you today I am extremely excited about. I ran across an article of somebody interviewing Bill Gates about what is going on in research and development in the Alzheimer's world. And when I read this, I was doing backflips because I do a lot of research about Alzheimer's research and development and keeping up with the with all the current trends and, you know, what's happening. And I can honestly tell you that it is almost impossible to find a resource out there that goes into detail about what is actually being researched and developed. And in this article, he gets very detailed and very specific about what actually is happening in that realm. And so I am very, very excited to be able to share this information with you and hope that you feel as hopeful and encouraged as I did after reading it. So let me get on with it. This is a very, very recent article. It was actually published June 15th. Of— so 5 days ago, and the title of it is The Path Bill Gates Sees to Overcoming Alzheimer's Disease's Biggest Remaining Challenges. And Bill Gates, for those of you who don't know, his father lived with Alzheimer's disease for 13 years. So part of his inspiration for being involved was due to his own experience as a caregiver and why he is doing everything he's doing to fight this disease. The article was produced in partnership with the Davos Alzheimer's Collaborative by Scientific American Custom Media. And a gentleman by the name of Tony Healy interviewed him. So this is how Tony starts out. And I, I like— I'm going to read this to you because I like the backstory about Bill Gates, and it all just kind of falls into place for everybody before they even start the interview. So here we go. It would be hard to imagine any person who's had more of an impact on public health than Bill Gates. Much of the wealth he amassed as founder of Microsoft has gone to charity, according to Fortune magazine. He is one of only 5 billionaires to have given away more than 20% of his wealth. In 2023, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which he started with his former wife Melinda Gates, spent more than $8 billion of its more than $70 billion endowment. Gates has focused his philanthropy largely on some of the most intractable health problems, such as malaria, HIV and AIDS, and childhood vaccinations. In recent years, he turned to Alzheimer's disease, starting with diagnostics and more recently expanding to proteomics and healthcare programs related to the disease. Scientific American Custom Media asked him about Alzheimer's disease. So this interview is specifically about Alzheimer's disease. First question: What sparked your interest in Alzheimer's, and how has your personal experience with the disease contributed to your decision to get involved? And Bill Gates' response to that is, like many people, I have a personal connection to Alzheimer's. My dad died from Alzheimer's, so I understand firsthand what a cruel disease it is and how difficult it can be to watch a loved one suffer with it. We were fortunate to have the resources to provide my dad with excellent care. And our family is grateful for the wonderful caregivers who helped him in the 13 years he lived with the disease. But for the majority of families battling Alzheimer's disease, this is unfortunately not always an option. Caregiving most often falls to a spouse, or a child, which can be, as many of you out there know, overwhelming. The financial burden of the disease is easier to quantify than the emotional cost. The lifetime cost of care for Alzheimer's and other dementias is rapidly increasing in the US, Japan, Europe, and other countries. He says according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the global cost will exceed $1.6 trillion by the year 2050 and represent nearly one-third of all healthcare spending. Unlike those with many chronic diseases, People with Alzheimer's incur long-term care costs as well as direct medical expenses. And if you get the disease in your 60s or 70s, you might require expensive care for decades. This is absolutely true. As I spent time learning about Alzheimer's and the research into it, I came to understand the challenges, he says. The brain can't be sampled easily or often, for example. And as we know, the blood-brain barrier is a double-edged sword. It both protects the brain, but it also makes it harder for treatments to get in, as we are learning. Through the, the information that is being disclosed to us about lecanemab infusions. That's not part of his interview. I'm adding that on. So back to Bill. Even so, as I learned about all the innovation in this field, I grew optimistic about the ability to make progress toward treatment and eventually a cure. This is a frontier where we can dramatically improve human life. It's a miracle that people are living so much longer today, but longer life expectancies alone are not enough. People should be able to enjoy their later years. And we need a breakthrough in Alzheimer's to fulfill that. Next question for Bill. As someone who takes a bird's-eye view of major health issues, how would you describe the current outlook for Alzheimer's research and clinical practice? And Bill's response to that was, after decades of negative clinical trials and dozens of failed therapies, Researchers are making progress on both diagnostics and therapeutics. Blood-based diagnostics are advancing rapidly. The first blood test for Alzheimer's, called Precivity AD, was launched in late 2020. A few others have followed since, but we are looking forward to the first FDA-cleared blood tests on the horizon. And he emphasizes, once this becomes a reality, the next hurdle will be ensuring these tests are used properly, accessible, and available to the patients that need them, and that we understand how these tests work in different patient populations. He continues to say, The therapeutic pipeline is diverse and robust. At the beginning of 2023, there were 187 trials assessing 141 different therapeutics. The anti-amyloid agent Lecanemab has been approved for use in patients, and the other medication, Donanemab, is expected to follow soon. Other therapeutics in the pipeline include disease-modifying therapies and cover a wide range of approaches, including amyloid and tau, but also newer mechanisms such as neuroinflammation, synaptic plasticity, neuroprotection, metabolism, and oxidative stress. This, the citing for that is J. Cummings et al., Alzheimer's Dement, paren, NY, and paren, April to June 2023, Volume 9, E12385. This is so exciting. With these other breakthroughs that are coming, it's fair to say we are At a Tipping Point on Alzheimer's. Next question for Bill. In recent years, you've directed funding to accelerate development of diagnostic technologies for Alzheimer's disease. Why did you pick that particular area to start? And his response to that question is, we systematically looked at the barriers to research and development on Alzheimer's disease. And we heard consistently that not having a simple, non-invasive, scalable, and relatively inexpensive diagnostic, such as a blood test, was a key challenge. It's a barrier to early diagnosis and subsequent enrollment in clinical trials. And continuing to make advancements on the disease depends on getting enough people enrolled early enough in trials. Another problem is that the commercial market for diagnostics does not stimulate investment. I found that to be extremely interesting. So as he continues, potential scientific breakthroughs are not being pushed forward as rapidly as they should be. This is why Bill has partnered with the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation to create the Diagnostics Accelerator, which is designed to advance bold ideas for easier, more accurate, and earlier diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. The next question posed to Bill Gates: Do you have any plans to direct funding to accelerate progress in other areas of Alzheimer's, such as treatments, diversity in clinical trials, and/or public health outreach, or others? And his response to that question is, we're focused on 5 areas. 1, understanding the biology of the disease. 2, diagnosing it. 3, treating it. 4, overcoming bottlenecks in clinical trials. And 5, making it easier for researchers to share data with each other. And then he goes on to say, One of our latest investments is with the Global Neurodegeneration Proomics Consortium, which brings together data from more than 40,000 blood samples around the world so researchers can identify biomarkers for detecting neurodegenerative diseases and identifying new mechanisms to test. We're also partners in the Clinical Trial Recruitment Lab, and the Global Alzheimer's Platform, which is called the Bio Hermes Study, both of which are aimed at recruiting people from diverse backgrounds to join clinical trials. He says they are also partnering in the Davos Alzheimer's Collaborative Healthcare System Preparedness Initiative, as well as recently announced Innovated Health Initiative funded program, which is, um, goes by the acronym AD-RIDDLE. And these are all of which are efforts to ensure that breakthroughs can be deployed in healthcare systems once they are approved for use. The next question. You've written about how data sharing is vital to learning more about Alzheimer's disease and in accelerating the progress. Why is it so important, and how is that effort going? And his response is, over the past few decades, drug trials and longitudinal cohort studies have generated an enormous amount of data. But right now, that information is not being shared to the fullest extent possible. Much of it remains locked away or accessible to only select groups. That is a missed opportunity as well as a disservice to the people who agreed to join studies so they could help advance the field. To unlock— to help unlock these datasets while making sure they're used responsibly, he goes on. We worked with several partners to launch the Alzheimer's Disease Data Initiative. Our goal is to help researchers from around the world access more information by making data and data platforms interoperable. So far, the effort has established interoperability with several data platforms, including the Dementia Platform UK portal, which is called the Vivli platform, and the Global Alzheimer's Association Interactive Network platform, and the acronym for that is GAAIN. Bill continued to tell us that more recently they've gotten involved in the European platform for neo—— sorry, neurodegenerative diseases. The acronym for that is EPND, which is a building platform that will help researchers make their data and biosamples shareable. Their platform will build on data and analysis tools made available by the Alzheimer's Disease Data Initiative, including the Global Research and Imaging Platform. Which is a nonprofit organization that he personally funds. Finally, they've created a 2-year fellowship, which is named after Bill Gates's dad, that brings in researchers from around the world to work on data analysis and to champion the idea of interoperability. And, um, the last question that Bill was asked in his interview is, what is the biggest obstacle to making progress on Alzheimer's? Is there a cultural shift that needs to happen? And he answered that this way. Although we've recently seen important advances in therapeutics and diagnostics, There is still a lot we don't know about Alzheimer's disease and the brain. Timely diagnosis is the first major shift that needs to happen. Many studies have shown that Alzheimer's disease and dementia are dramatically underdiagnosed today. If we're able to catch the disease sooner, we'll be able to give patients more options for treatment more social services, and the ability to participate in clinical trials and other research opportunities. But Alzheimer's disease is also a heterogeneous disease, and patients who have it show a wide range of pathologies in the brain and resulting symptoms. He says, I'm hopeful that the field will be able to capitalize on recent advances in diagnosis and treatment, and also make it easier and more efficient for people to enroll in Alzheimer's clinical trials so we can continue to improve our understanding of subtypes. And I'm interjecting this, as you recall me telling you many times, There are actually over 200 known brain diseases that cause dementia. Alzheimer's is the number one and the one that most of us are familiar. So, so he is, is really stressing that we need to be able to continue to improve our understanding of these subtypes of the disease and target our efforts at treatment and prevention. Finally, he says, there is a lot of stigma surrounding neurodegenerative diseases that makes it harder to discuss them openly. I don't think any of us can debate that. It's, it's so true. But he says, I think a lot of that is driven by the fact that these diseases seem so mysterious because we haven't had sophisticated diagnostics or treatments. He's optimistic that as more advances happen, the stigma will eventually fade, and open public conversations about Alzheimer's will accelerate progress even more. So as a final note, this article is part of The New Age of Alzheimer's, a special report on the advances fueling hope for ending this devastating disease. You can learn more about the innovation ecosystem that Davos Alzheimer's Collaborative is building to speed breakthroughs and end disease. Go to Davos Alzheimer's Collaborative to learn more. I cannot reinforce to you how promising this sounds to me, because Bill really went into a lot of detail about what's happening out there in the Alzheimer's research and development world that probably none of us were even aware were going on. And he's the man behind the curtain because he is directly involved in everything that I shared with you today. And another little trivial piece of information that I ran across that I think really relates to what this interview is saying is there's a statistic out there that I read recently that says, did you know that 62% of healthcare practitioners believe that dementia is a normal part of aging? I think that's mind-blowing that 62% of healthcare practitioners would believe that in June of 2024. So until we change people's perceptions, change these stigmas, educate people, and like Bill Gates says, start talking about it, these statistics aren't going to change. But at least we can rest assured now after realizing what he is up to, to help try to find a treatment and/or a cure for Alzheimer's disease is really, really happening. And I couldn't be more pleased to have read this information. So that concludes the Truth, Lies Alzheimer's episode for this week. I hope from the bottom of my heart that you find this information as encouraging and promising as I have, and that you will come back next week for another new episode of The Truth Lies in Alzheimer's Show with Lisa Skinner as your host. I look forward to seeing y'all then and have a great rest of your week. Bye for now.

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