StartUp Health Launches Global Alzheimer’s Moonshot with Support from the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) and Gates Ventures
New global initiative created to develop collaborative innovation community alongside leading companies, research teams, and stakeholders with mission to accelerate progress in prevention, diagnosis, and management of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.
Submit your application at www.startuphealth.com/apply
January 8, 2024 — San Francisco, CA — During the 42nd Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, StartUp Health, in partnership with the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation’s (ADDF) Diagnostics Accelerator (DxA), and Gates Ventures, the private office of Bill Gates, announced the launch of the Alzheimer’s Moonshot. This initiative aims to break down silos and foster meaningful collaboration between mission-aligned founders, funders, and partners, accelerating progress in preventing, managing, and curing Alzheimer’s and related dementias through the support of entrepreneurial innovation. The Alzheimer’s Moonshot is an invitation to Health Transformers, Alzheimer’s funders, foundations, advocates, and innovators, as well as leading startups and research teams, to unite in pioneering comprehensive, collaborative approaches to Alzheimer’s disease.
“Our goal is to seamlessly integrate the diverse network of key players driving Alzheimer’s innovation, fostering more impactful collaboration,” says Steven Krein, CEO and Co-founder of StartUp Health. “We are spearheading a unified global innovation community that connects entrepreneurs, scientists, philanthropists, investors, and patients, all dedicated to Alzheimer’s and related brain conditions. Working in partnership with the ADDF and Gates Ventures, and welcoming future innovators and funders to our mission, we aim to dramatically accelerate progress through unprecedented collaboration.”
The Alzheimer’s Moonshot Community is powered by StartUp Health and its Health Transformer University, an entrepreneurial mastery program and lifelong learning community for ambitious founders and funders who are solving the biggest health challenges of our time.
“There are over 55 million people worldwide living with Alzheimer’s disease, which is a complex, uniformly fatal disease, creating an urgent need to develop novel therapeutics and identify the combination regimens necessary to stop Alzheimer’s in its tracks,” notes Howard Fillit, MD, Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer at the ADDF. “The ADDF welcomes the opportunity to partner with StartUp Health to launch the Alzheimer’s Moonshot as it is uniquely positioned to bring mission-aligned founders together to collaborate and innovate, accelerating much-needed breakthroughs in Alzheimer’s research.”
As part of the launch, StartUp Health announced that Dr. Phyllis Barkman Ferrell will serve as the Chief Impact Officer of the Alzheimer’s Moonshot and lead its Impact Board. Dr. Ferrell has three decades of related experience, most recently serving as the Global Head of Alzheimer’s and Neurodegeneration at Eli Lilly and Strategic Advisor to the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative. The Alzheimer’s Moonshot Impact Board will also include representatives from the ADDF, Gates Ventures, and a diverse group of stakeholders from industry, clinical medicine, academia, investment and patient and caregiver communities.
Initial funding to launch the Alzheimer’s Moonshot is provided by Gates Ventures and the DxA, which is a $100 million global research initiative dedicated to fast-tracking the development of biomarkers and diagnostic tools. The DxA aims to develop these tools to aid with the early detection and diagnosis of Alzheimer’s.
During the inaugural year of the Alzheimer’s Moonshot, StartUp Health is excited to invite twenty select innovative companies and research teams who are committed to advancing their solutions into the realm of commercialization and scalability to join the Health Moonshot Community. Recipients will be awarded Alzheimer’s Moonshot Fellowships to Health Transformer University, StartUp Health’s long-term program designed to accelerate health startups and novel technology solutions through early stages of growth from R&D through commercial scale.
Fellowship selection will be driven by the Alzheimer’s Moonshot Scorecard, a criteria and framework that will serve as the foundational measurement for the initiative. Developed in collaboration with the Alzheimer’s Moonshot Impact Board, the scorecard is at the center of a multi-step, data-driven process that ensures all prospective Fellowship awardees align on mission and mindset. The finalized scorecard will be made available to the public to help catalyze advancements in Alzheimer’s research and innovation.
“History has taught us that collaboration inspired by purpose can produce wonders,” says Unity Stoakes, President and Co-founder of StartUp Health. “Humans have already been to the moon and back; now let’s band together to supercharge this new era of progress for brain health and finally eradicate Alzheimer’s for good.”
Calling all Alzheimer’s-focused startups and research teams
Are you an academic founder, founder, startup, or research team focused on Alzheimer’s innovation who would like to join the Alzheimer’s Moonshot? Discover more and submit your application at www.startuphealth.com/apply
Become an Alzheimer’s Moonshot Champion
Health moonshots, like the Alzheimer’s Moonshot, are fueled by mission-aligned families, foundations and industry organizations committed to solving big challenges. To explore how your organization can become part of the Alzheimer’s Moonshot (or one of our 14 global health moonshots) please reach out to us at alz@startuphealth.com.
For media inquiries, please contact press@startuphealth.com.
About The Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF)
Founded in 1998 by Leonard A. and Ronald S. Lauder, the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation is dedicated to rapidly accelerating the discovery of drugs to prevent, treat and cure Alzheimer’s disease. The ADDF is the only public charity solely focused on funding the development of drugs for Alzheimer’s, employing a venture philanthropy model to support research in academia and the biotech industry. The ADDF’s leadership and contributions to the field have played a pivotal role in bringing the first Alzheimer’s PET scan (Amyvid®) and blood test (PrecivityAD®) to market, as well as fueling the current robust and diverse drug pipeline. Through the generosity of its donors, the ADDF has awarded more than $270 million to fund over 730 Alzheimer’s drug development programs, biomarker programs and clinical trials in 19 countries. To learn more, please visit: http://www.alzdiscovery.org/.
About The Diagnostics Accelerator (DxA)
The Diagnostics Accelerator, created in July 2018, is a $100 million global research initiative from partners including ADDF Co-Founder Leonard A. Lauder, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, MacKenzie Scott, the Dolby family, the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, The Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration, among others, to develop novel biomarkers for the early detection of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.
This research initiative is dedicated to accelerating the development of affordable and accessible biomarkers to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias and advance the clinical development of more targeted treatments. Through translational research awards and access to consulting support from industry experts, this program will challenge, assist and fund the research community in both academia and industry to develop novel peripheral and digital biomarkers.
About StartUp Health
Since 2011, StartUp Health has been on a mission to solve the biggest health challenges of our time by creating and sustaining a global ecosystem of health moonshot communities. StartUp Health has provided support to more than 1,000 founders and contributed to the development of more than 500 health innovation companies. Our valued partners include The California Healthcare Foundation, The Helmsley Charitable Trust, The Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation and Gates Ventures in addition to nearly 100 families and mission-aligned organizations. Visit startuphealth.com