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Advocacy
Dementia is entering the era with new diaganostics, the first treatments and prevention interventions. How then does the global advocacy movement respond to this moment? What coalition is needed from scientists through to patients to collaborate, to share knowledge, to develop best practice and to deliver change? Learn how we are shaping the future of dementia advocacy and discover opportunities to contribute
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Biomarker implementation
This dialogue will examine how new blood-based biomarkers can move from research into health systems. Chaired by Dr Fiona Carragher, Chief Policy and Research Officer at the Alzheimer’s Society, the meeting will open with presentations from Professor Vanessa Raymont, University of Oxford, and Professor Jeff Burns, University of Kansas. The discussion will explore the practical challenges of integrating biomarker-based diagnosis and how the field can build the policy and advocacy case needed for health systems to adopt and fund these tools.
WDC Virtual Discussion
Date: 7 April 2026
TIme: 1400 BST
Format: Virtual meeting
The discussion will bring together leaders from across Europe and beyond to reflect on the emerging experience of adopting disease-modifying treatments for Alzheimer’s disease. Although regulators including the European Medicines Agency and the UK’s MHRA have approved the first generation of disease-modifying therapies payers in Europe are not approving the treatments, in contrast to countries like the United States and Japan.
The roundtable will explore how advocates mobilise urgency around access to treatments. Its aim is to
- Enable leaders from across Europe and beyond to share their experience around treatment and identify common barriers to adoption.
- Identify ways of collaborating as a group in the future to help secure adoption of diagnostics and treatments
For decades the field has operated in a context where only cholinesterase inhibitors treatments to tackle symptoms were reimbursed. The combination of plasma biomarkers and disease-modifying treatments represents a significant shift in how Alzheimer’s disease is diagnosed, understood, and treated, creating wider opportunities to develop new treatments and improve patient outcomes. This roundtable will provide an opportunity to reflect on how the field responds to that change.
This invitation-only event forms part of the Council’s wider work exploring how advocacy is changing in an era of new diagnostics and the first disease-modifying treatments. You can read more below about the project and related meetings.