Japan urges G7 allies to make stronger pledges to tackle dementia

World leaders are expected to take their strongest pledge to tackle dementia for 10 years at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, as the degenerative brain disease exerts a growing burden on the global economy and effective treatments for Alzheimer’s begin to emerge.

The government of Japan hosted a meeting global dementia organization in Nagasaki on the Sunday ahead of the summit starting May 19. Tokyo hopes the summit will pave the way for an updated declaration matching the scope of commitments made at the London summit of the G8 in 2013.

The declaration is likely to include commitments such as increased funding for research, improved access to care and increased international cooperation to address Alzheimer’s disease and some of the 100 or less common forms of dementia.

“The London summit made historic commitments to improve the lives of people affected by dementia and accelerate the development of disease-modifying drugs,” said Lenny Shallcross, executive director of the World Dementia Council. those commitments.

“Governments today need to address a variety of challenges, now that we have the first disease-modifying drugs, biomarkers that can show who might benefit from them and citizens who will expect a cure,” he said.

The first two drugs shown in clinical trials to slow the progression of the disease – donemab from US Eli Lilly and lecanumab developed by Japan’s Eisai with US biotech Biogen – sticky amyloid proteins in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s reduces the formation of ,

a survey of Alzheimer’s drug development pipeline A 2022 study by Jeffrey Cummings and colleagues at the University of Nevada showed that companies and academic laboratories globally are working on 143 drugs with a wide variety of different mechanisms besides targeting amyloid.

Japan takes a special interest in dementia, as it has one of the world’s oldest populations with nearly 30 percent of people over the age of 65.

“The summit in Japan will allow us to shine a light on dementia, which has become the first or second leading cause of death in five of the seven G7 members,” said Paola Barberino, chief executive of Alzheimer’s Disease International, a federation of dementias. Associations. He added that 60 per cent of health practitioners “erroneously think that dementia is not a disease but a part of normal ageing”.

George Vredenberg, founding president of the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative, an international organization promoting innovation in dementia treatment, said the 2013 G8 summit had an initial galvanizing effect on the field but the long-term response was insufficient.

“I am disappointed that governments have not followed a more coordinated approach,” he said.

Vredenberg said the US government alone has driven a large and sustained increase in Alzheimer’s research funding, which has increased tenfold in a decade from $400 million to $4bn. “To provide a base for the pharma and biotech industry to develop new treatments, publicly funded research must be increased everywhere, including in low- and middle-income countries.”

Shallcross said Japan’s inclusion of dementia on the G7 agenda “shows governments are shining more light on the issue”. Another high-level conference has been organized by the government of the Netherlands for the autumn.

“We will continue to work closely with our G7 partners on dementia research and innovation. If we are to develop new treatments, and better care for dementia. , , International co-operation is vital,” UK Health Secretary Steve Barclay said at the Nagasaki conference.

Barberino said dementia will also feature prominently at the World Health Assembly next week. The Geneva meeting will address the failure of most WHO member states to develop national plans for dementia as agreed in the Global Action Plan in 2017.

“Inaction means health systems are unprepared despite emerging treatment breakthroughs, leaving millions of people unable to access the care and support they need,” she said.