Washington, D.C. July 26, 2022 — The National Institutes of Health (NIH) released their annual professional judgment budget for Alzheimer’s and dementia research, requesting an additional $321 million in fiscal year 2024. The funding request was announced during the annual National Alzheimer’s Project Act (NAPA) Advisory Council on Alzheimer’s Research, Care and Services meeting.
“Thanks to our passionate advocates and bipartisan congressional support, there is significant momentum in the fight against Alzheimer’s and other dementia. The professional judgment budget highlights the commitment of leading scientists and researchers to continue this momentum by advancing knowledge about prevention, more effective treatments, and ultimately a cure,” said Robert Egge, Alzheimer’s Association chief public policy officer and Alzheimer’s Impact Movement (AIM) executive director. “We are grateful that Congress has worked in a bipartisan fashion to ensure NIH receives the vital investment required to accelerate progress against Alzheimer’s and all other dementia.”
This is the eighth professional judgment budget for Alzheimer’s released by the NIH. In 2014, the Alzheimer's Association and AIM championed and secured support for the passage of the Alzheimer’s Accountability Act, which ensures Congress hears directly from NIH scientists on the resources needed to address the Alzheimer’s public health crisis. Alzheimer’s is only the third disease to have a professional judgment budget.
Alzheimer’s research funding has seen a seven-fold increase since the passage of NAPA in 2011. Today, funding for Alzheimer's and dementia research at the NIH is over $3.5 billion. With robust funding, scientists are able to work at a more rapid pace to advance basic disease knowledge, explore ways to reduce risk, uncover new biomarkers for early diagnosis and drug targeting, and develop potential treatments. Increased research funding has enabled the scientific community to explore multiple avenues to reveal the causes, potential treatments and preventions of this devastating disease.
AIM and the Alzheimer’s Association are proud to work with bipartisan champions to extend NAPA with the introduction of the NAPA Reauthorization Act. We are also grateful that Congress introduced the Alzheimer’s Accountability and Investment Act to ensure the Alzheimer's Professional Judgment Budget is released annually by the NIH. These bills will help ensure addressing Alzheimer’s remains a national priority and momentum continues on research funding.
Today more than 6 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's disease, and an estimated 11 million more are providing unpaid care. Alzheimer’s is estimated to cost the nation $321 billion in 2022 including $206 billion in Medicare and Medicaid payments.
