I had the chance to talk with Tetsuyuki Maruyama, the CSO of the relatively new Dementia Discovery Fund – our final interview for #BioTrinity2016 in London.
The high risk nature of doing trials for Dementia patients means in the past the market for this area of Neurodegenerative disease has been tough.
However, the need for improved therapeutics for Dementia and Alzheimer’s – and the increasing incidence of such diseases means researchers are experiencing a ‘bounce back’.
Tetsuyuki explains how the financial returns for Dementia is not what is spurring this new revival – but a collaborative effort to better the lives of sufferers. This is in part what has inspired the Dementia Discovery Fund to be founded in October, as a global investment fund managed by SV Life Sciences.
The DDF acts as an intermediary between charity, industry and the government by investing into discovery research targeting Dementia, with a fund which currently stands at €90M ($100M).
Tetsuyuki Maruyama (i.e. Paul Chapman from the US), former head of research of Takeda…
Feature Image Credit: Philip Hemme and Tetsuyuki Maruyama at BioTrinity 2016
P.S. Compliments to the DDF’s web designer…very pretty.