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 The investment is not part of Gates' philanthropic Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation and will be followed with another $50 million in a
number of start-up ventures working in Alzheimer's research, Gates
said.
With rapidly rising numbers of people suffering from Alzheimer's and
other forms of dementia, the disease is taking a growing emotional
and financial toll as people live longer, Gates told Reuters in an
interview.
"It's a huge problem, a growing problem, and the scale of the
tragedy - even for the people who stay alive - is very high," he
said.
Despite decades of scientific research, there is no treatment that
can slow the progression of Alzheimer's. Current drugs can do no
more than ease some of the symptoms.
Gates said, however, that with focused and well-funded innovation,
he's "optimistic" treatments can be found, even if they might be
more than a decade away.
"It'll take probably 10 years before new theories are tried enough
times to give them a high chance of success. So it's very hard to
hazard a guess (when an effective drug might be developed).
"I hope that in the next 10 years that we have some powerful drugs,
but it's possible that won't be achieved."
Dementia, of which Alzheimer's is the most common form, affects
close to 50 million people worldwide and is expected to affect more
than 131 million by 2050, according to the non-profit campaign group
Alzheimer’s Disease International.
The DDF, which was launched in 2015 and involves drugmakers
GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Pfizer and Biogen
Idec as well as the UK government, has already invested in at least
nine start-up companies investigating potential ways to stop or
reverse the biological processes that lead to dementia.
Gates told Reuters the additional $50 million would be put into
start-ups working on some "less mainstream" approaches to the
disease, but said he had not yet identified these companies.
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The philanthropist, whose usual focus is on infectious diseases in
poorer countries, said Alzheimer's disease caught his interest
partly for personal reasons, and partly because it has so far proved
such a tough nut to crack.
"I know how awful it is to watch people you love struggle as the
disease robs them of their mental capacity... It feels a lot like
you're experiencing a gradual death of the person that you knew," he
said in a blog post about the dementia investments.
He added: "Some of the men in my family have suffered from
Alzheimer's, but I wouldn't say that's the sole reason" (for this
investment).
Through talking to experts in the field over the past year, Gates
said he had identified five areas of need: Understanding better how
Alzheimer's unfolds, detecting and diagnosing it earlier, pursuing
multiple approaches to trying to halt the disease, making it easier
for people to take part in clinical trials of potential new
medicines, and using data better.
"My background at Microsoft and my (Gates) Foundation background say
to me that a data-driven contribution might be an area where I can
help add some value," he said.
Alongside the $50 million investment in DDF and the additional $50
million planned for start-ups, Gates said he would like to award a
grant to build a global dementia data platform. This would make it
easier for researchers to look for patterns and identify new
pathways for treatment, he said.
(Editing by Dan Grebler)
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