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CHICAGO -- The U.S. National Institute on Aging (NIA) is funding a $300 million project to build an Alzheimer's research database.
The six-year program is expected to help track the health of Americans for decades and allows researchers to gain insights on the brain-wasting disease that causes forgetfulness, a Reuters report said.
The NIA's data platform will have the capacity to store long-term health information on 70% to 90% of the U.S. population, the news agency said citing officials.
NIA is a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Dr. Nina Silverberg, director of the NIA's Alzheimer's Disease Research Centers program, told Reuters in an interview that real-world data will help make a lot of vital decisions about medications' effectiveness.
Tracking patients before and after Alzheimer’s symptoms appear is the key to advancing toward a cure for the disease. The disease can reportedly begin up to 20 years before memory issues develop.
Interest in long-term tracking of the disease has been energized by the development of Leqembi, a new treatment for the disease from Eisai Co Ltd and Biogen Inc that slows the advance of the disease in early-stage patients.
The platform would also track patients after treatments including Leqembi which won accelerated U.S. approval in January. It is expected to receive traditional FDA approval by July 6.
The tracking will help U.S. Medicare health plan for older adults that will require tracking in a registry.
The Reuters report said that although the program was not designed for this specific purpose it might be possible to use it for that purpose.
The system would be built in a secure computing environment with a number of restrictions to ensure the privacy of people's health data, Silverberg told Reuters
The funding programe will start from April 2024 to establish a registry in 21 months.