INNOVATION AGENDA

Among children born today, half are expected to reach the age of 100 years, and thus are at risk of acquiring a disease of the aging brain such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD) or stroke, against which few or no effective treatments are available. Globally, the societal cost for these diseases has increased by approximately 35% over the last 5 years and will exceed one trillion USD by 2018. From a societal perspective, discovering and developing treatments for these diseases is therefore one of our greatest challenges.

Swedish research in the field of AD, PD and stroke is world leading. With a comprehensive strategy and long-term and sustainable financing, Sweden has a unique opportunity to develop products for diagnosis and treatment of the disease. Such products would reduce human suffering and minimize the cost to society, thereby increasing Swedish growth and competitiveness.

This document describes an innovation agenda to stimulate the process from discovery to development of treatments and products, with action plans through 2035. The agenda was developed jointly by representatives of academic research, health care, government agencies, companies in Sweden and the global pharmaceutical industry.

The strategy is based on creating an unbroken, optimized innovation chain (research-discovery – development – market) where each link and stakeholder in the chain is important for a successful outcome. Specifically, this will enable an increase in entrepreneurship that can ultimately pave the way for a new global industry based in Sweden.