New initiative aims to transform how Alzheimer's disease is diagnosed, treated across healthcare settings

Alzheimer EuropeJan 31 2024

Members of the AD-RIDDLE consortium announced today that they will begin a new initiative that aims to bridge the gap between Alzheimer's research, implementation science, and precision medicine. The AD-RIDDLE programme will offer healthcare professionals a suite of validated solutions for timely detection and diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and dementias, to match individuals with the right interventions at the right time, enabling people to better understand what they can do to reduce risk and prevent cognitive decline.

Alzheimer's disease represents a major public health challenge. In Europe alone, around 7 million people are living with Alzheimer's disease, a figure that is expected to double by 2050. There is a pressing need for effective preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic solutions, implemented at scale, and for increased engagement of individuals and caregivers with disease prevention, management and care. The advent of disease-modifying therapies will lead to more people seeking diagnosis and treatment. While this initially represents an increasing cost to health systems and society at large, it also presents enormous potential for prevention, opportunities for more timely diagnosis and personalized treatment options, and overall health-economic benefits in the long term.

With new research on the efficacy of multi-domain lifestyle interventions and the promise of disease-modifying therapeutics, there is renewed hope for patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers, and a window of opportunity for substantial progress. AD-RIDDLE represents the greatest opportunity yet for cross-sector progress in Alzheimer's research and care."

Miia Kivipelto, Professor, Research Director and Senior Geriatrician at the Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital, and Principal Investigator (PI) for the AD-RIDDLE project

Thanks to funding from the Innovative Health Initiative (IHI) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the AD-RIDDLE consortium will begin a five-year effort to transform how Alzheimer's disease (AD) is detected, diagnosed, and treated across healthcare settings. The consortium unites academic and industry partners, healthcare providers, regulatory bodies, and patient organizations, bringing together a mix of world-class research, clinical practice, diagnostics, advanced analytics and data platform capabilities to the project. AD-RIDDLE builds on existing technology, biomarkers, tools, and interventions, many developed by the consortium partners through prior EU-funded initiatives, including studies building on Professor Kivipelto's ground-breaking FINGER research.

AD-RIDDLE aims to unlock efficiencies for AD diagnosis and treatment, removing barriers to entry that traditionally slow down patient access to healthcare providers and precision medicine. The project will create a modular toolbox platform designed to provide support at all stages of the clinical pathway, including:

• A digital community engagement portal, including self-guided assessment tools for older adults, pathways for timely referral to healthcare providers, and resources that are tailored and actionable.
• An array of screening tools for increased accuracy in risk detection and early diagnosis, including digital cognitive assessments and blood-based biomarkers.
• A decision support toolkit for healthcare providers, powered by validated algorithms for differential diagnoses, prevention, and care.
• Personalized patient therapies which can be physician-supported or self-guided, including lifestyle interventions and pharmacological treatments, matching patients to the right interventions at the right time.

The AD-RIDDLE platform will allow for flexible adaptation and application in diverse settings, from memory clinics to primary care and the broader population outside of healthcare systems. A real-world testing study will be conducted in these settings across six European countries and will provide extensive evidence to support implementation of diagnostic tools, treatments and lifestyle interventions. Data from the study will be hosted in a GDPR-compliant manner on the European Platform for Neurodegenerative Diseases (EPND), an IMI2-funded initiative which will make datasets available for additional research and discovery, with the goal of facilitating new findings in neurodegenerative disease research.

"AD-RIDDLE will rapidly advance the "last mile" of innovation, bridging Alzheimer's care pathways from research to a real-world setting in an efficient and effective manner based on high-quality data," said Niranjan Bose, Managing Director, Health and Life Sciences at Gates Ventures and co-lead for the project. "AD-RIDDLE will generate real-world evidence for clinical implementation of precision diagnostics, interventions and therapies, and drive new research on Alzheimer's disease by making datasets available through EPND."

With broad participation of patients and clinical experts across a diverse mix of healthcare settings in the EU, AD-RIDDLE aims to empower patients with actionable guidance to address their cognitive health and will push Alzheimer's research forward.