BURNHAM UNVEILS £48M PARTNERSHIP TO SPEED DEMENTIA RESEARCH

Andy Burnham has pledged to make dementia research a national priority after announcing a £48 million commercial partnership aimed at accelerating the search for a cure. The package combines £33 million in government investment with funding from Bristol Myers Squibb, GSK and Gates Ventures, intended to recruit more people into clinical studies. The announcement came ahead of the Innovation Nation Summit in Manchester on Friday, and follows the death of Burnham's father, Roy, from Alzheimer's last month. Burnham, named in reports as prime minister, said he wanted Britain "to be the country that makes the breakthrough" and described dementia as "a devastatingly cruel disease" for those who live with it and the families who care for them.

Burnham said society had "accepted dementia as something to be managed later in life, rather than a disease we can defeat," adding, "I don't accept that." He said the funding would back the NHS, universities, researchers and industry to deliver breakthroughs, and that it would work alongside government plans for a National Care Service to support families. Some of the capital will fund the Barbara Alliance, established in memory of former EastEnders actress Dame Barbara Windsor, to speed up the development of new dementia treatments. A new data platform is also planned, linking health records, scientific data and clinical trial infrastructure to simplify the selection of candidates for future research.

Dementia is set to become a top priority of the new Health Data Research Service, which is backed by up to £600 million from the government and the Wellcome Trust. That service aims to combine NHS and research data in a single system, helping scientists identify suitable patients for studies. According to reports, one project under the scheme will see GSK use health data to examine a possible association involving its shingles vaccine, though further detail on that project has not been confirmed.