UK TO ENROL DEMENTIA PATIENTS IN CLINICAL TRIALS- The Dementia Trials Accelerator will be launched to increase the number of trial patients

Tens of thousands of dementia patients are to be enrolled in clinical trials to speed up the hunt for a cure.

The Dementia Trials Accelerator, a £20m initiative funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) is being launched to tackle the “historically low” numbers enrolled into trials , as only 61 patients took part in trials in the UK in 2021-22.

The UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI), which is spearheading the scheme along with the Health Data Research UK (HDR UK), said it would recruit tens of thousands of dementia patients to help fast-track the discovery of new treatments for the disease.

The director of the UK DRI, Prof Siddharthan Chandran, said the UK has all the assets to be a trials powerhouse in dementia, from world-class science, cohorts and data infrastructure to a unitary healthcare system.

He further stated that the goal of the Dementia Trials Accelerator is to position the UK as the destination of choice for pharma and industry to invest in and run late-phase clinical trials.