MUST READS

An April 22, 2015 The New York Times opinion piece by Newt Gingrich called for a doubling of the NIH budget. According to Gingrich, “Even as we’ve let financing for basic scientific and medical research stagnate, government spending on health care has grown significantly. That should trouble every fiscal conservative. As a conservative myself, I’m often skeptical of government “investments.” But when it comes to breakthroughs that could cure — not just treat — the most expensive diseases, government is unique. It alone can bring the necessary resources to bear. (The federal government funds roughly a third of all medical research in the United States.) And it is ultimately on the hook for the costs of illness. It’s irresponsible and shortsighted, not prudent, to let financing for basic research dwindle. For example, the total cost of care for Alzheimer’s and other dementia is expected to exceed $20 trillion over the next four decades — including a 420 percent increase in costs to Medicare and a 330 percent increase in costs to Medicaid. Even without a cure, the premium on breakthrough research is high: Delaying the average onset of the disease by just five years would reduce the number of Americans with Alzheimer’s in 2050 by 42 percent, and cut costs by a third. And that’s not even counting the human toll on both patients and caregivers (often family members), whose own health may deteriorate because of stress and depression. Yet the N.I.H. is spending just $1.3 billion a year on Alzheimer’s and dementia research — or roughly 0.8 percent of the $154 billion these conditions will cost Medicare and Medicaid this year, more than all federal education spending.” Newt Gingrich, a Republican, was speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999.

An April 22, 2015 Reuters article reported that the "Swiss drugmaker Roche has 'renewed confidence' that drugs targeting potentially brain-destroying plaque can fight Alzheimer's disease, following promising results with a product from a rival.” According to the article, “Aducanumab is similar to Roche's experimental product gantenerumab in the way it blocks beta amyloid, a protein that forms toxic brain plaques that are theoretically an underlying cause of the memory-robbing disease. Yet Biogen's early success contrasts with disappointing results from a late-stage Phase III study with gantenerumab and a separate setback with Roche's Phase II drug crenezumab…Roche, which stated in a results presentation it had "renewed confidence" in the beta amyloid hypothesis, expects to be in a position to give an update on its Alzheimer's work later this year. Analyst Tim Anderson at brokerage Bernstein said the latest comments suggested crenezumab would be advanced into late-stage Phase III studies.”

RESEARCH, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY

An April 21, 2015 MIT News article reported that the university will release a new report examining the nation’s innovation deficit on April 27. The report will detail “impacts of declining research investment and benefits of renewed support in critical fields such as cybersecurity, infectious disease, plant biology, and Alzheimer’s.”

An April 17, 2015 FasterCures Q&A with John Wilbanks explored the power of mobile technology to advance medical research. According to Wilbanks, “It’s been really hard to untangle complex diseases like cancer or Parkinson’s disease, when you only see someone three times a year for 15 minutes. We need to understand variation in order to treat, and we need sufficient sample sizes in order to understand variation. That’s what mobile does – it offers the promise of sufficient sample size and the ability to center the studies on the people, and groups of people, in ways that are much more a part of their daily lives.” John Wilbanks is the Chief Commons Officer at Sage Bionetworks and a Senior Fellow at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and at FasterCures. 

An April 17, 2015 The Wall Street Journal article reported that the NCAA and the Department of Defense have partnered to launch “a three-year, $30 million project to track the effects of concussion using data from as many as 37,000 student athletes.” According to the article, “The study is one of several new NCAA-backed “big data” projects, according to Oliver Luck, the organization’s executive vice president of regulatory affairs. Other efforts include mandating schools to report to the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research and conducting summits to examine injury, recovery and optimal training data related to a particular sport.”

POLICY AND REGULATION

An April 21, 2015 FDA News statement announced that “the FDA is offering a grant of up to $1 million to turn large amounts of electronic health record data into usable figures highlighting postmarket risks of various drugs.” According to the release, “The FDA announced plans in January to build a database of electronic health records as part of the Mini-Sentinel project. There are roughly 150 million patient records online, and the agency is hoping the foundation will develop analytical processes that can turn that raw data into clear safety trends. The endeavor should focus not only on the best uses of that data, while understanding its limitations, but also account for biases in observational studies, the FDA says.”

BRAIN HEALTH 

An April 21, 2015 Miami Herald article reported on the difference between healthy aging and Alzheimer’s disease. According to the article, “At the University of Miami Center on Aging, Curiel is involved in a study of healthy adults ages 63 and older like Paul Herman to determine if those at risk for Alzheimer’s could be detected before the onset of symptoms. The five-year study, which began Feb. 1, looks at cognitive and biological markers and how they relate to mild cognitive impairment. Participants undergo tests to assess cognitive and functional abilities, as well as genetic testing and testing of amyloid levels in cerebral spinal fluid over a five-year period. “We’re trying to detect the earliest changes that occur in the aging population that make them at risk for developing a memory disorder,” Curiel said. Researchers are trying to refine the formula of early detection, she said. “We’re looking for links and patterns that can help us better define what is healthy aging, versus what is risk for cognitive decline,” Curiel said. In the best-case scenario, the science will be used to develop drugs for people who are pre-symptomatic but who have a lot of risk factors. “Drugs that can put the speed bumps down and slow the progression into dementia so that people can live healthy and independent lives for as long as possible,” she said.”