A £3 million (approximately $4.91 million) Dementia Consortium has launched to expedite development of new drugs. The initiative, announced today at the G8 Dementia summit in the U.K., brings together research experts from charity, academic, and private sectors.

Alzheimer’s Research U.K., which is contributing £2 million, unites with MRC Technology and two pharma companies Eisai and Lilly, which are both putting in £500,000. A call will go out in the U.K. and internationally for academic teams to apply for funding to develop their targets. Applications will be submitted by April 2014, with projects under way mid-year.

The Dementia Consortium will fund academic dementia research experts from Alzheimer’s Research U.K. and MRC Technology’s networks in the U.K. and overseas to develop early findings into validated drug targets. Academic teams will work with MRC Technology’s Centre for Therapeutics Discovery to help confirm viable drug targets for further development.

Promising targets will be made available to Eisai and Lilly who are able to agree to terms of collaboration with the academic partner and share data from any previous work on particular drug targets.

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