Worldwide Initiative Aims to Develop Globally Generalizable Blood-Based Tests for Alzheimer’s Disease

By LabMedica International staff writers
Posted on 20 Dec 2024

The Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative (DAC, Geneva, Switzerland), a pioneering worldwide initiative seeking to cure Alzheimer’s disease and improve brain health, will work with Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Research & Development (Raritan, NJ, USA) and Beckman Coulter Diagnostics (Brea, CA, USA), two leading pharmaceutical and diagnostics companies, to advance the assay validation of blood-based biomarkers (BBMs) for Alzheimer’s disease for global use in diverse populations. DAC, via its Global Cohorts Program, has enabled this transnational, multi-party collaboration and provided support for biosample collection at the Catholic University of Korea (CUK, Seoul, South Korea) for a study. The collected samples will represent individuals across all stages of Alzheimer’s disease—from healthy controls to those with mild cognitive impairment, pre-clinical Alzheimer’s, and full Alzheimer’s disease—confirmed by clinical assessments and amyloid PET scans.

This inclusive research initiative is vital to DAC’s commitment to diversifying Alzheimer’s research, as most BBM studies so far have primarily involved Caucasian populations from Western Europe or the United States. BBMs show significant potential to revolutionize Alzheimer’s diagnostics and the patient care pathway. Blood collection, being less invasive and more cost effective than traditional methods, is already widely accepted in clinical practice. It can be performed in various healthcare settings without requiring specialized training for medical professionals, making it an ideal method for broad application.

Image: DAC and pharmaceutical and diagnostics companies will work together on Alzheimer’s disease blood biomarker validation (Photo courtesy of DAC)

The successful implementation of BBMs will offer patients essential diagnostic information, improving access to timely and appropriate care. These biomarkers could streamline the testing process by helping to triage patients and potentially confirming the presence of beta amyloid at a larger scale. DAC’s collaborative efforts with industry partners aim to address knowledge gaps in low- and middle-income countries and support the creation of universally applicable blood-based Alzheimer’s tests. Moving forward, DAC plans to expand its global cohorts, collecting biological samples to gain insights from diverse populations around the world.

“The opportunity to partner with the Davos Alzheimer's Collaborative enables our work at Beckman Coulter Diagnostics to develop a scalable, patient friendly blood-based test for Alzheimer’s disease,” said Zivjena Vucetic, MD, PhD, Chief Medical Officer at Beckman Coulter Diagnostics. “DAC’s access to a wide range of Alzheimer’s disease patient cohorts, especially from under-represented populations, highlights the true heterogeneity of the disease. Accessing diverse patient samples is critical to our ability to develop a high-quality, reliable immunoassay test available to patients around the world.”

“This program is an important demonstration of DAC’s commitment to increasing diversity and trans-national collaborations in Alzheimer’s disease research. Our partnerships with the Catholic University of Korea, Janssen Research & Development, LLC, and Beckman Coulter will enable development of more robust and globally valid diagnostics blood tests for Alzheimer’s disease,” said Vaibhav Narayan, DAC Executive Vice President.