Dementia research at UCL has received a major new investment of £15 million for the Alzheimer’s Research UK Drug Discovery Institute at UCL.
Alzheimer’s Research UK announced the funding as it renews its flagship Drug Discovery Alliance at a pivotal moment for dementia research.
UCL’s Drug Discovery Institute was launched in 2015 with an aim to turn more early-stage scientific discoveries into potential new treatments. Alongside two other centres at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, which have also received their own shares of a £45 million funding round from Alzheimer’s Research UK, teams of scientists have helped to strengthen the drug discovery pipeline while the first treatments capable of slowing Alzheimer’s are beginning to reach patients worldwide.
The Institute’s model is to identify drug candidates and then partner with industry, or spin out new companies for development. The first spinout from the Institute, AstronauTx, was founded in 2019, and is progressing a portfolio of treatments towards making them available for patients.
Professor Fiona Ducotterd (UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology), Chief Scientific Officer, Alzheimer’s Research UK Drug Discovery Institute at UCL, said: "This significant investment from Alzheimer’s Research UK helps us fast-track the development of new medicines to treat the broad and complex diseases that cause dementia. It will also help us to train the next generation of medicine makers in the UK.
"In the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, we work at the heart of bench-to-bedside translational research across all neurodegenerative diseases. This grant uniquely couples our industry expertise and technologies with doorstep access to world leading researchers, clinicians and patients. The funding will accelerate the discovery of a new toolbox of treatments for broad underlying causes of these devastating diseases and speed up their access for patients."
Dr Sheona Scales (Alzheimer’s Research UK, Director of Research) said: "This investment represents one of the most important commitments we can make to people affected by dementia. By strengthening the Drug Discovery Alliance, we’re giving more brilliant ideas the chance to become tomorrow’s treatments. Our supporters make this progress possible - and together, we’re building real momentum towards a cure."
The Alzheimer’s Research UK Drug Discovery Institute at UCL team is supported by the Omaze Million Pound House Draw via a £3.9 million grant to Alzheimer’s Research UK in 2025.
The Institute uses pharmaceutical industry processes to progress their research with the freedom to work on cutting-edge new discoveries, supported by evidence based on human biology.
The team’s project portfolio spans therapeutic targets involved in mechanisms underlying brain changes in specific neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s and other dementias, Parkinson’s, motor neurone disease, and Huntington’s disease. The group works closely with academic experts on the drug targets, and with Drug Discovery Alliance and industry partners on the long and challenging process of drug discovery, to deliver new medicines for patients.
The Institute will soon be moving to a new purpose-built centre for translational neuroscience that is currently under construction on Grays Inn Road, where they will be under the same roof as scientists and clinicians with state-of-the-art facilities that will facilitate the bench to bedside translation of discoveries to patients.
Chris Lane
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