With new research funding from the National Institutes of Health, the nation’s premier Alzheimer’s disease study network will undertake four major studies aimed at finding new treatments for the disease.

The award supports the latest projects of the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study (ADCS) External Web Site Policy, a national consortium of academic medical centers and clinics set up by NIH in 1991 to collaborate on the development of Alzheimer’s treatments and diagnostic tools.

In this round of studies, the ADCS will test drug and exercise interventions in people in the early stages of the disease, examine a medication to reduce agitation in people with Alzheimer’s dementia, and test a cutting-edge approach to speed testing of drugs in clinical trials.

The National Institute on Aging (NIA), the lead institute within NIH for Alzheimer’s research, announced the award on Jan. 14, 2013.

The ADCS will receive $11 million in fiscal year 2013, and the effort could total as much as $55 million over the five years of the project.

The consortium, coordinated by the University of California, San Diego and led by Paul Aisen, M.D., is made up of more than 70 research sites External Web Site Policy in the United States and Canada with a focus on advancing studies of interventions that might not otherwise be tested by industry.

“The ADCS is a key initiative in the federal program to discover, develop and test new Alzheimer’s treatments and diagnostic tools. Over the years, it has proved invaluable in advancing our understanding about the disease and how to conduct research in this challenging area,” said NIA Director Richard J. Hodes, M.D. “I am particularly excited that this round of studies will use what we have learned by testing interventions pre-symptomatically, as early as we can in the development of the disease, where we now think the best hope lies for keeping Alzheimer’s at bay.”

The ADCS and this latest round of studies, Hodes noted, are critical to accomplishing the research goals set forth in the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease External Web Site Policy announced by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in May 2012.

The plan was developed under the National Alzheimer’s Project Act [PDF] External Web Site Policy, which calls for a coordinated and concentrated effort in research, care and services for Alzheimer’s and related dementias. Its primary research goal is to prevent and effectively treat Alzheimer’s disease by 2025.

“The ADCS has long benefited the wider research community by emphasizing the importance of collaboration and data-sharing and by focusing on trial design and instrument standardization,” said Laurie Ryan, Ph.D., NIA Alzheimer’s disease clinical trials program director. “With this newly funded work, the goal is to expand the range of individuals participating in ADCS clinical trials from those at risk for the disorder to those with Alzheimer’s dementia, so that the full spectrum of the disease is represented.”

The NIA launched the ADCS in 1991 under a cooperative agreement, in which NIH participates in the management of the studies. Over the past two decades, the ADCS has built an infrastructure emphasizing collaboration and data sharing. It focuses on evaluating interventions that will benefit Alzheimer’s patients across the disease spectrum.

This includes testing agents that lack patent protection; agents under patent protection that are already marketed for other uses but which might prove useful in treating Alzheimer’s; and novel compounds developed by individuals, academia, pharmaceutical companies and small biotech companies.

In addition to testing new therapies, the ADCS mission includes the design of new instruments for use in clinical studies and the development of novel and innovative approaches to Alzheimer’s disease clinical trial design and analysis. The ADCS also strives to enhance the recruitment of minority groups into Alzheimer’s studies. To date, the ADCS has conducted 30 studies (23 drug studies and seven instrument development protocols).

The NIA leads the federal government effort conducting and supporting research on aging and the health and well-being of older people. It provides information on age-related cognitive change and neurodegenerative disease specifically at its Alzheimer’s Disease Education and Referral (ADEAR) Center at http://www.nia.nih.gov/Alzheimers .

For expanded information on Alzheimer’s care and resources, please visit the federal government’s portal website http://www.alzheimers.gov .

Information on health and on aging generally can be found at http://www.nia.nih.gov .