EPAD (European Prevention of Alzheimer’s Dementia Consortium)
IMI (Iniciativa Medicaments Innovadors) – consorci públic-privat entre la UE i la Federació Europea de les Associacions de la Indústria Farmacèutica (EFPIA). EPAD (European Prevention of Alzheimer’s Dementia Consortium) és un consorci europeu que té com a principal objectiu treballar per a la prevenció de l’Alzheimer a través d’un programa de recerca interdisciplinari.
Given the evidence that Alzheimer’s disease causes brain changes prior to the onset of symptoms, the EPAD (European Prevention of Alzheimer’s Dementia Consortium) focuses on the early stages of the disease with the aim of developing interventions to prevent and treat this form of dementia. In recent years, research has increasingly concentrated on this presymptomatic phase in order to offer new preventive treatments and to intervene more effectively.
The EPAD project, launched in 2015, is the largest public–private consortium in the field of Alzheimer’s research, thanks to the cooperation of a wide range of organisations (research centres, universities, pharmaceutical companies and patient associations across Europe) and the enrolment of more than 1,500 participants. The consortium is funded by grant number 115736 from the Innovative Medicines Initiative, a joint initiative of the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA).
Fundación ACE is member number 32 of the consortium, having joined in 2019. It is one of the representatives from Spain, alongside the Pasqual Maragall Foundation research centre, the Barcelonaβeta Brain Research Center, Hospital Clínic de Barcelona and the CITA Alzheimer Foundation (San Sebastián).
EPAD challenges
To carry out its mission, the EPAD project faces several challenges, including the difficulty of identifying individuals who may eventually develop Alzheimer’s disease, limited understanding of the earliest stages of the disease, and the lack of flexibility in conventional clinical trial development. To address these challenges, the consortium has developed three core strategies:
1. The register
EPAD aims to create the first unique, pan-European register of individuals at different levels of risk of developing this form of dementia.
2. The cohort
Based on this register, research participants are invited to join a cohort of subjects with varying levels of risk. Currently, more than 1,500 participants from centres across Europe are part of this cohort; they undergo standardised assessments and are followed over several years.
3. The trial
EPAD selects participants for adaptive clinical trials of drugs designed to prevent dementia. In fact, EPAD is a pioneering platform in the implementation of this approach. Whereas in traditional clinical trials half of the participants receive the investigational treatment and the other half receive a placebo, adaptive trials compare several candidate drugs simultaneously, while also including a placebo arm. As a result, a higher proportion of participants may benefit from a potentially active treatment aimed at reducing their future risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, researchers can adapt trial designs in response to emerging results, adding new candidate drugs and discontinuing those that prove ineffective. With better data and improved decision-making, adaptive trials can increase the likelihood of success and shorten development timelines.