AbbVie joins Dementia Consortium

AbbVie has joined the Dementia Consortium, a research-focused partnership between academia, charity and the private sector.

Valued at four million pounds, the consortium is dedicated to finding new drug treatments for dementia, leveraging the expertise of its members to drive early-stage drug discovery programmes against promising academic targets for neurodegenerative disease.

Existing members include medical research charity MRC Technology, leading dementia research charity Alzheimer's Research UK, and pharmaceutical companies Astex, Eisai and Lilly.

AbbVie will bring additional expertise, resources and capital to the consortium, allowing more projects to be funded and progress to be accelerated.

Dr Jim Summers, vice-president of neuroscience discovery research at AbbVie, said: "We are pleased to be part of the Dementia Consortium. This innovative approach to validating new drug targets is an important component of our strategy to develop new therapies to treat neurodegenerative diseases."

To date, a total of more than 1.5 million pounds has been awarded by the consortium to early-stage drug discovery efforts for neurodegenerative disease.