UK-based University of Dundee’s Drug Discovery Unit has announced a renewed partnership with Japanese pharmaceutical firm Takeda, and the University of Cambridge to continue their work to discover new therapeutic treatments for dementia.

Dementia is a term used to cover a group of diseases that cause decline in cognitive function. There are several subtypes of dementia, each with its own unique symptoms and underlying causes. Alzheimer’s Disease is the most common form of dementia accounting for 60-70 percent of dementia cases.

Almost one million people in the UK are estimated to be living with dementia, with an estimated cost of £25 billion in 2021, and although disease-modifying treatments are now starting to be approved there is still great need for safe and effective medicines. The number of people affected are expected to increase dramatically in the coming decades, thus representing a vast and growing unmet medical need.

This renewed collaboration between Professor David Gray at the Drug Discovery Unit, Dr Will McEwan at the UK Dementia Research Institute at the University of Cambridge and Takeda will continue to look for new drug-like molecules that could be taken into clinical development for Alzheimer’s Disease.