Responding to the challenges of an ageing population

This increase will inevitably lead to an increase in disorders of old age, for instance in diseases of the brain. In the UK alone, 700,000 people are affected by dementia, a number forecast to double within a generation. The issue is far from restricted to developed nations. In countries such as India and China dementia is predicted to increase by more than 300 percent by 2040.

Currently age-related disorders of the brain present a huge unmet medical need, posing the greatest scientific challenge and highest risk. Central nervous system (CNS) drugs entering clinical development have just a 1% chance of reaching the market place, compared to the industry average of 11%, and they also take longer to get there.

Innovation opportunities

Eliot Forster is the Chief Executive of Solace Pharmaceutical, a research and development company specialising in treatments for pain. He is clear about the outlook: “From a UK perspective, if we stay with the current approaches, the burden on the UK’s public healthcare system, the National Health Service (NHS), will become unmanageable. What we need is mindset change, a genuine shift in the in focus from treatment to prevention.”

The UK has the opportunity to face this challenge and apply resources in a meaningful way

Eliot Forster

Chief Executive

Solace Pharmaceutical

“Some common diseases of age and lifestyle, such as heart disease and diabetes are increasingly well treated. As a result, we are reaping dividends in terms of a decrease of events related to these diseases, such as heart attacks and strokes. With the increasing burden brought by an ageing population this will no longer be good enough and we must seek and adopt ways of preventing disease instead of simply just treating the outcomes.”

Forster believes the role of the NHS as a single healthcare provider puts the UK in a unique position to tackle this issue and lead the rest of the world, noting that. ‘’The UK has the opportunity to face this challenge and apply resources in a meaningful way.”

Outside public healthcare, collaboration between pharmaceutical and biomedical research organisations is critical to enable the exchange of knowledge, skills and innovation opportunities.

Working in partnership

Dr Angela Hodges, a lecturer from Kings College London is involved in a European wide study called AddNeuroMed, which aims to identify biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease suitable for early diagnosis and for monitoring disease progression. The research is particularly relevant to the drug development process, where early decision making on candidates for early intervention clinical trials will have a big economic impact and speed up delivery of treatments. Biomarkers may also ultimately be of benefit in clinical practice where individual response to treatment may be monitored.

“Unless we can improve ways of measuring the impact of interventions and identifying people likely to develop Alzheimer’s at an early stage it is very difficult to make huge progress in this area”, comments Dr Hodges. “Currently available drugs only have a very modest effect in people.”

We need to be able to give people the right information to make healthier choices

Dr Jack Watters

Vice President for International External Medical Affairs

Pfizer

Dr Jack Watters, Pfizer’s Vice President for International External Medical Affairs, is responsible for relations with medical societies, academic institutions and government health bodies around the globe. Dr Watters also believes that healthy ageing will be underpinned by partnerships, forged among Governments, payers, health care professionals, academic and scientific institutions and industry. “I want Governments to see ageing as a cause for celebration, not a cost. But to do that they need to take action and create long term public policy on health which has a lifecycle approach. We need to be able to give people the right information to make healthier choices and ensure that we are healthier than our parents are, but that isn’t always happening even in the most developed nations.”

It is thought that if scientists can develop a treatment to reduce severe cognitive impairment in older people by just 1% per year, it would cancel out all estimated increases in the long-term care costs due to our ageing population. The drive for greater collaboration to achieve this is therefore paramount.

NHS reform

In a recent speech on NHS reforms (January 2008) the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown talked about a change of emphasis to prevention rather than cure, and the need to ensure the NHS benefits from new and innovative technologies.

The Department of Health has introduced a number of recent initiatives to ensure the huge potential of the NHS is exploited

The Department of Health has introduced a number of recent initiatives to ensure the NHS’ huge potential is exploited in stimulating innovation and early adoption technologies: the Centre for Evidence-based Purchasing collates and supports evidence gathering; the NHS Technology Adoption Hub identifies the factors that enable the NHS to rapidly adopt new technologies; the UKCRN supports clinical research to facilitate the conduct of trials, and The Health Innovation Council ensures innovation, from discovery to adoption to support the delivery of more effective care. Together the UK has the opportunity to tackle the ageing challenge by applying resources in a meaningful way.