Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to increase funding and support for Alzheimer's research to accelerate the development of effective treatments and improve early diagnosis techniques.

The Government is strongly committed to supporting research into dementia and has committed to double funding for dementia research, to £160 million per year, by the end of 2024/25. This will span all areas of research, including diagnosis and treatment of dementia, and more specifically Alzheimer’s disease.

The Government has allocated up to £120 million to the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Mission, which aims to speed up the development of new treatments through innovations in biomarkers, clinical trials, and implementation.

Alongside the mission, the Department, via the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), is funding a range of research to accelerate the development of effective treatments and to improve early diagnosis techniques. This includes investing almost £50 million into the NIHR’s Dementia Translational Research Collaboration Trials Network. This will expand the United Kingdom’s early phase clinical trial capabilities in dementia, speeding up the development of new treatments, and funding to the Blood Biomarker Challenge which could make the case for the use of a blood test in the National Health Service, to support diagnosis of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease.