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Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals

Published 6 December 2024

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What we do

Dementia is the leading cause of death in England and one in two people will be directly affected by it - either they will care for someone with the condition, develop it themselves, or both. It also has a high social cost, with around £34.7 billion a year currently spent on healthcare, social care and informal care. Annual costs are predicted to rise to over £94 billion by 2040.

On 14 August 2022, the government launched the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals, along with £95 million of funding. There is now up to £120 million committed funding to the Dementia Goals programme.

The programme aims to speed up the development of new treatments for dementia and neurodegenerative conditions. On the 20 March 2023 we announced the appointment of two Co-Chairs of the Dementia Goals programme, Hilary Evans-Newton (CEO of Alzheimer’s Research UK) and Nadeem Sarwar (Co-Founder and Head - Transformational Prevention Unit at Novo Nordisk). 

The programme will set up the Neurodegeneration Initiative, which will be a globally unique, not-for-profit, industry led public-private partnership that will work together across government, industry, academia, the NHS and third sector, and will deliver the Dementia Goals programme objectives around developing innovations in biomarkers, data and digital sciences, increasing the number and speed of clinical trials in dementia and neurodegeneration and supporting the regulators and health system on implementation. This will enable faster set-up and running of clinical trials to ensure more new treatments are developed and made available to patients sooner than otherwise.

In July 2023, Innovate UK launched an SBRI Innovation Competition, supported by £6 million of government funding, which has provided funding to ten projects to accelerate innovations in dementia biomarker detection to transform clinical trials and precision therapies. These technologies can be used as clinical tools to enable the biomarker guided development of transformative dementia therapies. The winners were announced on 20 March 2024.

In the Autumn Statement in November 2023, the government announced up to £20 million of additional funding for the launch of a Clinical Trials Delivery Accelerator (CTDA) focused on Dementia. This will be delivered by the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals and the Medical Research Council (MRC), tying in with the work of the NIHR Dementia Translational Research Collaboration’s Trial Network and other key initiatives. The Dementia Trials Accelerator aims to embed more innovation in how clinical trials are designed and delivered in order to increase the speed and quality, while driving down the cost of large-scale trials.

In March 2024, the government hosted a roundtable and reception at No.10 Downing Street where charities, academics, investors, business leaders and people with lived experience came together to further accelerate efforts to tackle this devastating illness and to thank all those involved in supporting dementia research, including charities right across the UK.

At this event government made a series of announcements including:

  • The appointment of Scott Mitchell as the People’s Champion for the Dementia Goals.
  • The appointment of Ruth McKernan as Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Neurodegeneration Initiative.
  • The appointment of the Medicines Discovery Catapult as the delivery partner for the establishment of the Neurodegeneration Initiative.
  • The award of a share of £6 million funding to ten projects through Innovate UK’s Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) dementia biomarker tools competition (described above).

The Dementia Goals programme has established a world-leading Scientific Advisory Board, chaired by Dr Ruth McKernan (SV Investors and former Executive Chair of Innovate UK) with scientific, clinical and regulatory global expert members who provide strategic advice on the Dementia Goals’ scientific plan and priorities.

In July 2024, Innovate UK awarded four UK companies a share of £4.8 million funding through Contracts for Innovation to support innovative research into dementia diagnosis as part of the Dementia Goals programme. The funding will enable organisations to evaluate blood-based and digital biomarkers as part of the Bio-Hermes-002 study, an international study led by the Global Alzheimer’s Platform Foundation® (GAP).

In December 2024, the Medical Research Council launched an £18 million funding call for experimental medicine to define new mechanisms of neurodegeneration. Applicants are invited to apply for funding to investigate the causes, progression and treatment of neurodegenerative conditions that give rise to dementia. Projects funded through this funding opportunity will work with the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme to support progress against its ambitions and to identify and exploit synergies across relevant investments in the landscape.

We have appointed Scott Mitchell, husband of the late Dame Barbara Windsor, of which the Dementia Goals programme is named after in her legacy, as People’s Champion of the Dementia Goals programme. Scott, who will chair the People’s Forum, will ensure that unmet needs of individuals and caregivers – as defined by them – are met through proactive engagement, partnership and transparency. The People’s Forum will engage with patients and those with lived experience of dementia and neurodegenerative conditions to ensure the Dementia Goals’ work is grounded in the real-world experiences of those with dementia, as well as their caregivers.

Further information about these announcements can be found in the links at the bottom of this page.

Who we are

The Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme is co-chaired by Hilary Evans-Newton and Nadeem Sarwar.

Hilary Evans, Co-Chair of the Dementia Goals.

Hilary Evans-Newton is the Chief Executive of Alzheimer’s Research UK, where she has led the transformation of the charity to one of the leading medical research charities in the UK, and the largest charitable funder of dementia research in Europe.  She has overseen a significant growth in income, enhancing Alzheimer’s Research UK’s ability to fund innovative projects. Under her leadership Alzheimer’s Research UK has focused on ground-breaking projects that unite charity, academic and private sectors to drive forward progress towards a treatment for the diseases that cause dementia. With Hilary at the helm, the charity has set up the pioneering Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Alliance, helped develop and launch the Dementia Discovery Fund, UK Dementia Research Institute and established global collaborations with other funders and institutions.

Nadeem Sarwar, Co-Chair of the Dementia Goals.

Professor Nadeem Sarwar has held various leadership positions at leading global pharmaceutical firms - across drug discovery, human genetics and digital technologies – and is an Honorary Professor at the School of Medicine, University of Edinburgh. His expertise stems from the intersection of genomics, data sciences and digital technologies to drive therapeutic innovation. He currently serves as Co-Founder and Head of The Transformational Prevention Unit at Novo Nordisk and previously served as the Global Head, Genomic Strategies & Global Head, Digital Strategies at Eisai, and was the Founder and President of the Eisai Centre for Genetics Guided Dementia Discovery (G2D2). He has senior experience in academia (Cambridge, Edinburgh), pharma (Pfizer, Eisai), Biotech (G2D2), and company incubation (Eisai Biolabs); he has successfully built and led research teams across the UK, US and Japan; and has contributed to delivery of therapeutics into clinical trials for cardiometabolic disease, immunology, oncology, COVID-19 and neurodegeneration. He has contributed to the leadership of several international and multi-sector collaborations and partnerships. In 2022, Nadeem was elected to the UK Medical Research Council Neurosciences and Mental Health Board.

Contact details

You can contact the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals by email: [email protected].

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