LOS ANGELES: Biomarkers could revolutionise the early detection of and therapy for Alzheimer’s disease. However, experts attending the Congress of the European Academy of Neurology (EAN) in Copenhagen criticised that the big breakthroughs are slow in coming because of a lack of priorities in research. A roadmap should help to push along advances in this area.
Detecting Alzheimer’s disease early on and fighting it with a therapy tailored to the patient would be the ideal strategy. The right biomarkers could contribute substantially to these efforts. Yet the biomarkers of Alzheimer’s pathology currently being investigated and developed are at different stages of development. International experts have now drawn up a five-phase framework for biomarker development, which was unveiled at the Second Congress of the Europe Academy of Neurology (EAN) in Copenhagen. This new roadmap is meant to help guide researchers, funding agencies and policy makers in the health care sector. “We currently lack a coordinated approach in biomarker development at European and international level”, Prof Giovanni Frisoni from the University of Geneva in Switzerland told the Congress. “Clear-cut research priorities could accelerate a great many things, for instance, authorisation by regulatory agencies, reimbursement by payers, implementation in clinical practice, and ultimately the development of effective treatments”…