New Treatments and Blood Tests Bring Fresh Hope in Fight Against Dementia
More than 10,000 researchers from around the world descended on London this week for the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC), the world’s largest gathering dedicated to dementia research. For care providers, the event offered a significant update on progress being made towards earlier diagnosis, easier-to-deliver treatments, and, ultimately, a cure.
Among the most practically significant announcements for the care sector was news regarding lecanemab, a treatment designed to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.
Following last year’s promising results for a subcutaneous, injectable version of the drug, the US Food and Drug Administration has now approved a once-weekly injectable starter dose, meaning treatment could in future begin with at-home injections rather than hospital-based intravenous infusions.
Hilary Evans-Newton CBE, Chief Executive of Alzheimer’s Research UK, said an injectable option from the outset of treatment would represent a major step forward for both the convenience of patients and the affordability of delivery for health services. For an NHS already stretched for capacity, a move away from hospital infusions could make it considerably easier to roll out Alzheimer’s treatments at scale.
Delegates also heard updates on trontinemab, an experimental treatment that uses “brain shuttle” technology to cross into the brain more effectively. New findings build on earlier results and suggest the drug may achieve substantial reductions in amyloid — the protein associated with Alzheimer’s — within just a few months of treatment, while causing comparatively few of the side effects seen with some currently licensed drugs.
Researchers at the conference described a broader shift in focus, from treating people who already show symptoms towards identifying those at greatest risk and intervening before symptoms begin.
The PrevenTRON trial is exploring whether early treatment can delay, or even prevent, the onset of Alzheimer’s altogether — an approach comparable to using medication to reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
Dr Jacqui Hanley, Head of Research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, cautioned that the science is not yet proven, noting that trials of this kind will take several years to determine whether treating people before symptoms appear genuinely helps them remain well for longer.
One of the most closely watched developments concerns blood tests capable of detecting the biological changes associated with Alzheimer’s. Researchers hope such tests could eventually flag those at risk before memory and thinking problems set in, helping clinical trials reach the right participants sooner and, in time, allowing treatment to begin early enough to delay or prevent symptoms.
New data presented at the conference found that people with very high levels of the blood biomarker p-tau217 faced an estimated 78 per cent risk of developing cognitive impairment within ten years. However, researchers stressed that almost a quarter of people with low biomarker levels still went on to experience a decline in memory and thinking, underlining that a single blood test result cannot yet reliably predict an individual’s future risk of dementia.
To support safe and effective use of these tests in clinical practice, Dr Jemma Hazan, a Clinical Research Training Fellow at Alzheimer’s Research UK, is developing a training programme for clinicians called DART-CU. Co-designed with clinicians, carers and people affected by dementia, it aims to help healthcare professionals judge when blood biomarker testing is appropriate and how to explain results to patients clearly and sensitively, with an emphasis that such tests should support, not replace, clinical judgement.
Researchers also presented new findings from the phase 2 CELIA trial, which is investigating a treatment aimed at tau, a protein that builds up inside brain cells and disrupts their function in Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. Early results suggest that reducing tau levels earlier in the disease process, before the characteristic tangles form, may help slow decline in memory and thinking, adding to a growing pipeline of drugs targeting different aspects of the disease.
The conference also highlighted work to make dementia prevention more inclusive.
Results from the LatAm-FINGERS trial, which ran across 12 countries, demonstrated that lifestyle programmes tailored to local cultures and communities can be both effective and feasible, building on earlier findings from the original FINGERS trial showing that structured lifestyle changes can meaningfully improve memory and thinking.
Particular attention was also paid to women’s brain health. Women account for nearly two-thirds of people living with Alzheimer’s, yet their experience has historically been under-represented in dementia research — a gap addressed at a symposium hosted alongside the conference by Maria Shriver, Dr Joanne Pike and Hilary Evans-Newton CBE.
The conference also saw the announcement of five successful teams from the Dementia Frontiers Fund, an international initiative launched in October 2025 to tackle some of dementia research’s toughest unanswered questions. The fund attracted 132 applications from research teams across 29 countries, with 12 shortlisted teams pitching their proposals to an expert panel during the conference.
The five winning teams, addressing questions ranging from predicting disease progression to understanding why some high-risk populations appear resilient to dementia, will each receive up to £1.5 million over two years. The fund is led by Alzheimer’s Research UK in partnership with Gates Ventures and the Robertson Foundation, with support from the Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative and the Q Charitable Trust.
