Together, we can change the future of neuro­degenerative diseases.

Accelerating the discovery of diagnostics and treatment for neurodegenerative diseases by removing barriers to data and sample sharing and fostering collaboration

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Creating new pathways for collaborative research

Neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, affect millions of people and will create an estimated economic burden of €267 billion in Europe by 2030. Despite the prevalence of neurodegenerative disorders, there is a lack of accurate diagnostic tools or effective treatments to prevent or modify disease progression.

The European Platform for Neurodegenerative Diseases (EPND) will address this growing challenge with transcontinental data sharing and collaboration, creating a powerful collective effort to accelerate biomarker discovery, development, and validation across Europe and the world.

The EPND Vision

Accelerate the discovery of diagnostics and treatment for neurodegenerative diseases by removing barriers to data and sample sharing and fostering collaboration

Currently, the medical community lacks treatments that can prevent or slow the progression of neurodegenerative diseases. One major barrier for researchers is a lack of access to secure and reliable clinical samples and biodata to develop diagnostic tools and therapeutics more effectively.

To address this, EPND is building a scalable and self-sustaining platform to accelerate discovery of diagnostics and therapeutics. When the project is complete, EPND will facilitate access to neurodegenerative disease data and clinical samples from across Europe, representing more than 120,000 individuals. The neurodegenerative disease research community can use this secure, accessible platform in a collective effort to develop diagnostic tools and treatments, to change the future for patients and their caregivers.

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Facilitating connection and multidisciplinary collaboration

Without a collective effort, research on neurodegenerative diseases will stall. EPND brings together leaders from academic research, the pharmaceutical industry, and data science in a multidisciplinary, public-private partnership for a diverse community in Europe and beyond. We will accelerate collective efforts by building on existing initiatives, removing traditional barriers to collaboration and discovery, and integrating research cohorts to make them discoverable, enabling information, sample, and data exchange.

Establishing a data- and sample-sharing platform

EPND will bring together existing cohorts and initiatives from public and private sectors to build a scalable and sustainable platform with a central point of access for data sharing, discovery, and analysis that utilises features, tools, and analytics provided by the Alzheimer's Disease Data Initiative’s (ADDI) AD Workbench.

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Accelerating biomarker discovery through large-scale analysis and innovation

Large-scale biomarker research holds the key to developing more accurate diagnostics for neurodegenerative diseases. Learnings and data generated from biomarker case studies will be incorporated back into the EPND platform to drive continued innovation, enabling researchers to discover data and samples to answer new research questions.

Building long-term sustainability of infrastructure and processes

In establishing the EPND platform, we will provide governance, good practice, and guidance for users from across disciplines, validate and fine-tune functionality of the platform with case studies, and embed a sustainability-by-design approach to ensure a cost-effective, value-added platform for the global research community.

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Planning for the biggest impact

EPND will combine technology, security, and governance for real, collective progress on neurodegenerative diseases.

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Building on the AD Workbench

EPND will springboard from the AD Workbench’s world class data and resource sharing to enable more collaboration across a bigger audience.

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Creating a new standard for data sharing

EPND prioritises patient privacy and will implement best-in-class procedures and legal, ethical, and operational regulations to ensure collective data security and compliance.

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Ensuring data quality

High-quality data leads to groundbreaking research. EPND will standardise and harmonise data to create highly discoverable, trustworthy, and interoperable content for researchers.

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Expanding collaboration

EPND is a collective effort designed to incorporate feedback from researchers, the diagnostic and biopharma industry, subject matter experts, regulators, patients, and caregivers. Please join our efforts to help shape the future of neurodegenerative diseases.

The people that power EPND

Empowering collaboration 29 Public & private partners

The EPND Consortium connects public and private leaders in neurodegenerative research and treatment from across Europe to accelerate progress.
Jumpstarting discovery 60+ Existing cohorts

EPND will bring together more than 60 separate cohorts to multiply their efforts and amplify their ability to create breakthroughs.
Building community 19 Countries

EPND will build a multidisciplinary, international community of users and contributors in the European Union, all working toward the same goal — to eradicate neurodegenerative disease.

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About the Technology

EPND will be built on and powered by ADDI’s AD Workbench, creating a community of practice to connect neurodegenerative disease research in Europe, and contributing to the collective goal of advancing scientific breakthroughs and accelerating progress.

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AD Workbench

ADDI’s AD Workbench is an open, global, and easy-to-use platform that makes it possible for researchers around the world to share and access data. AD Workbench provides infrastructure for free data sharing, state-of-the art computational resources and data science tools, and global collaboration opportunities.

FAIR Data Discovery

Data discoverability is a core need for advancements in neurodegenerative research. ADDI’s FAIR data services facilitate simple search functionality for datasets and clinical samples.

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Become part of the mission. Sign up for our newsletter for updates on the development of the EPND platform and an invitation for access at launch.

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EPND will use any data provided hereunder in accordance with the Privacy Statement.

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