Reconfiguring the Landscape for the Alzheimer’s Challenge II

An invitation-only workshop jointly organized by UC Santa Barbara (UCSB) Neuroscience Research Institute and the MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering (LFE).

Meeting Co-Hosts: Miyoung Chun, World Without Alzheimer’s; Professor Kenneth S. Kosik, UCSB; and Professor Andrew W. Lo, LFE

Dates: October 11-13, 2018

Location: Wequassett Resort, 2173 Route 28, Harwich, MA

This invitation-only meeting will dive deeper into the issues raised at the meeting on February 1, 2018 at UCSB. It will bring together a multi-disciplinary group of key stakeholders and thought leaders with the goal of identifying actionable next steps for addressing the main obstacles currently facing Alzheimer’s research and therapeutic development.

As big pharma companies continue to shut down Alzheimer’s programs in the face of one clinical failure after another, the global burden of Alzheimer’s disease is only growing. To make genuine progress in Alzheimer’s research and therapeutics, we must find a way to take “multiple shots on goal,” which will be possible only by obtaining much greater funding than is currently available to support the Alzheimer’s field. Our first meeting in Santa Barbara built great momentum toward this objective.

The goal for this second meeting is to generate a clear path forward with actionable road maps for implementation. To achieve this goal, we intend to capture the “lay of the land” of Alzheimer’s scientific research from which we can develop ambitious but realistic objectives and devise new business models, if necessary.

We will seek various expert opinions in the months leading up to October and will assemble content that will be vetted and refined by all meeting participants. Key areas of interest include:

• Basic science and identifying targets
• Applied science and clinical development
• New business and financing structures
• Outreach, e.g., engaging with patient advocates and marketing/communications

We expect that this meeting will be a catalyst for transformation by producing detailed, concrete, and actionable plans for making real progress in addressing Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, we expect that new connections will be forged among the diverse set of participants, providing an avenue for continued collaboration and implementation of the ideas presented.

October 11-13, 2018
Wequassett Resort and Golf Club
2173 Route 28
Harwich, MA 02645

Agenda

• Daniel Arbess, Founder and Chief Investment Officer, Xerion Investments
• Chris Austin, Director, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
• David Baltimore, Robert Andrews Millikan Professor of Biology, Caltech
• Anna Barker, Director, National Biomarker Development Alliance, Arizona State University
• Katja Brose, Science Program Officer, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative,
• Valerie Conn, Executive Director, Science Philanthropy Alliance
• Jean-Jacques Degroof
• Terry Sejnowski, Professor and Laboratory Head, Computational Neurobiology, Salk Institute
• Li-Huei Tsai, Director, Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, MIT
• Aaron VanDevender, Chief Scientist, Founders Fund
• George Vradenburg,Chairman and Co-Founder, UsAgainstAlzheimer’s

To make the most of our time together, we’ve compiled a short list of readings you may find helpful in preparing for discussions.

• 2017 Alzheimer’s disease facts and figures, Alzheimer’s Association, 2017, Alzheimer’s & Dementia 13, pp. 325–373.
• Assessing the Preparedness of the U.S. Health Care System Infrastructure for an Alzheimer’s Treatment. Jodi L. Liu, Jakub P. Hlavka, Richard Hillestad, and Soeren Mattke, 2017, RAND Corporation.
• Assessing the Preparedness of the Health Care System Infrastructure in Six European Countries for an Alzheimer’s Treatment. Jakub P. Hlavka, Soeren Mattke, and Jodi L. Liu, 2018, RAND Corporation.
• Alzheimer’s Disease: A Center for Strategic Philanthropy Giving Smarter Guide, Milken Institute, 2018.
• Alzheimer’s Disease Drug Development Pipeline: 2018. Jeffrey Cummings, Garam Lee, Aaron Ritter, and Kate Zhong, 2018, Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions 4, pp. 195–214.
• The Price of Progress: Funding and Financing Alzheimer’s Disease Drug Development. Jeffrey Cummings, Carl Reiber, and Parvesh Kumar, 2018, Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions 4, pp. 330–343.

Material presented at the workshop is available to participants only. Please CLICK HERE to access the password-protected area.