There is currently just one disease-modifying therapy for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Increasingly, AD R&D is being performed by academic groups and early-stage biotech companies. Many of these programs stall in the “valley of death”, due to insufficient funding, expertise, and tools required to develop and commercialize drugs. To bridge this gap, the venture philanthropy model has emerged as a complimentary driver of translational research amongst public and private funders. Venture philanthropy combines deep disease-focused expertise and networks, with funding in high-risk/high-reward drug programs. Funding is structured to enable returns on investment, which are reinvested into further drug development projects. Venture philanthropies have contributed to advancing more preclinical AD candidates into clinical trials and helping academic and early-stage biotech programs reach critical scientific and business milestones. With recent examples of successful returns on investment, more capital is available to feed the AD therapeutic pipeline, expand clinical trials, and develop biomarkers to support these programs.

Until recently, only five medicines have been approved for treatment of patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Unfortunately, these agents offer just mild and temporary symptomatic improvement, without slowing progression of the disease itself. The Harrington Discovery Institute of University Hospitals Health System in Cleveland addresses this problem through a unique model that advances a diversified portfolio of new medicines for both treatment and prevention of AD. The institute identifies academic scientists in the USA, UK, and Canada who have made exceptionally innovative basic science discoveries related to AD and provides them with both financial support and critical programmatic direction. This latter contribution entails guidance and oversight from eminent drug developers whose collective expertise would normally only be available within a large pharmaceutical company. This enables academic scientists to bridge the “valley of death” between their scientific discoveries and development of medicines. As a result, HDI is bringing new medicines with novel mechanisms of action into the clinic for Alzheimer’s disease.