ALZHEIMER EUROPE
EPND: accelerating the discovery of biomarkers for neurodegenerative diseases Alzheimer Europe is part of the newly-launched Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) project, EPND (European Platform for Neurodegenerative Diseases). In this article, the project leaders discuss the aims and aspirations of the new initiative.
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Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s cost millions of lives and will create an estimated economic burden in Europe of EUR 267 billion by 2030. EPND will answer this massive challenge... bringing together European teams, samples and data.” Pieter Jelle Visser
Unprecedented volumes of data and sam- presence or progress of disease, and iden- of Leicester), Phil Scordis (UCB Biopharma) ples are being generated each day by clinical tify patients who may benefit from particular and Niranjan Bose (Gates Ventures). research projects on neurodegenerative dis- therapies. Traditional biomarkers include orders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s C-reactive protein (or CRP), which is used in What is EPND and what do you hope to disease. These valuable resources hold the clinics worldwide as a measure of inflam- accomplish? key to new diagnostics and treatments, with mation in the blood, and can help identify the potential to identify genetic risk factors, people with diseases like rheumatoid arthri- EPND is the European Platform for Neurobiomarkers, and novel drug targets for pro- tis. Similarly, measuring the level of albumin degenerative Diseases, a 5-year project that gressive diseases that are currently incurable. proteins in urine allows doctors to monitor receives funding from the European Commisthe progression of chronic kidney disease. sion and European pharmaceutical industry (via EFPIA, the European Federation of PharWith the potential to Biomarker tests that measure proteins such maceutical Industries and Associations), make data accessible from as CRP and albumin are quick, inexpensive, under the auspices of the Innovative Medmore than 120,000 research accessible and minimally-invasive, using icines Initiative (IMI) 2 Joint Undertaking. participants, in partnership with small samples of blood or urine. However, EPND has an initial budget of EUR 19,005,502 such fluid-based biomarkers are not yet and was launched in November 2021. over 60 European cohorts, EPND widely-available for detecting or monitoring will provide vital information neurodegenerative diseases. EPND is plan- Our ultimate goal is to establish a data and to scientists, researchers and ning to change this, by helping researchers sample infrastructure that will accelerate the find and access high-quality clinical samples discovery of biomarkers, new diagnostics and clinicians.” and data. This will accelerate the discovery of treatments for neurodegenerative conditions biomarkers for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Niranjan Bose and eventually support the development of new diagnostics and therapeutics. Specifically, EPND will integrate existing iniBiomarkers have an important role to play in tiatives and European research programmes facilitating early diagnosis and the develop- To find out more, we spoke to the project to build a scalable, sustainable and collaboment of effective treatments. As measurable leaders of EPND: Pieter Jelle Visser (University rative platform for storage and analysis of indicators of how our bodies or organs are of Maastricht), Anthony Brookes (University high-quality collections of clinical samples functioning, biomarkers can help detect the and accompanying data from neurodegenerative disease research studies. This platform will exist as the European node of the AD Workbench of the Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative (ADDI), a US-based medical research organisation committed to increasing interoperability of data platforms and accelerating dementia research globally.
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Coordinators – left to right: Anthony Brookes, Niranjan Bose, Phil Scordis, Pieter Jelle Visser
Beyond establishing the EPND platform, we will carry out a range of case studies, performing analyses to discover and validate new biomarkers, and leverage this work to Dementia in Europe
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