A new European initiative, in partnership with King’s College London, aims to accelerate earlier diagnosis and improve access to treatment for people living with Alzheimer’s disease
A new European-led initiative, involving King’s College London, aims to accelerate the timely diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. It aims to address long delays that prevent patients from accessing care and emerging therapies. By strengthening collaboration across healthcare systems, research, and industry, the programme aims to ensure more people receive earlier, more effective support for dementia.
€37M pan-European Alzheimer’s initiative launched
The ACCESS-AD consortium, co-led by King’s College London, Amsterdam UMC, Siemens Healthineers, and Gates Ventures, and funded by the European Commission’s Innovative Health Initiative (IHI—a funding program supporting health research partnerships), has announced the launch of a transformative European initiative with an initial budget of over €37 million over 5 years. This will accelerate the implementation of scientific advances for managing Alzheimer’s disease (AD, a progressive brain disorder that causes memory loss), with King’s College London receiving €2.8m.
Alzheimer’s disease is rising sharply and is expected to exceed 19 million people in Europe by 2025. The disease is already placing a significant strain on healthcare systems, leading to delays in the delivery of timely diagnostic testing and treatment.
ACCESS-AD aims to address these challenges directly, improving access to effective care. It plans to combine brain imaging, blood-based biomarkers (measurable substances in blood indicating the presence or severity of disease), digital monitoring tools, AI-driven (artificial intelligence-based) decision support, and real-world evidence (data collected outside of clinical trials) into a patient pathway. Its design aims to speed up diagnosis, support the safe use of disease-modifying therapies (DMTs – treatments that slow disease progression), and expand access to advanced innovations beyond specialist centres, reaching primary care and underserved areas.
Professor Dag Aarsland, Professor of Old Age Psychiatry and Head of the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing at King’s College London, and clinical co-lead of the project, said: “By combining technological innovation with economic, ethical, regulatory, and patient perspectives, we aim to chart a sustainable, scalable and equitable pathway for the implementation of new AD diagnostics and therapies.”
European project targets faster Alzheimer’s care
A cornerstone of ACCESS-AD is its pan-European AD (Alzheimer’s disease) registry, which will use the established InRAD platform (an international database for real-world Alzheimer’s data). This registry will collect real-world data from over 500 patients across varied healthcare systems, capturing safety, clinical progression, and treatment outcomes in routine practice.
The initiative will integrate health-economic regulatory development, ethical reflection and sustainability assessments. European Patient Advisory Boards will ensure that the needs and values of patients and carers are embedded throughout the project. ACCESS-AD builds on other IHI initiatives, including PROMINENT, PREDICTOM, AD-RIDDLE, and EPND, ensuring that advances in early detection, biomarker innovation, and data infrastructure translate into improved diagnosis, treatment, and care.
“ACCESS-AD is bringing together cutting-edge diagnostics and personalised treatment that can be delivered at a large scale. By combining neuroimaging (brain scans) with fluid and digital biomarkers (measurable indicators from fluids like blood and digital tracking tools), we can identify people at risk earlier and guide them into individualised treatment plans that combine disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) with lifestyle and nutrition approaches,” Dr Zunera Khan, Research Portfolio Lead in the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing at King’s.
