Nearly $3.5 Billion for Alzheimer’s Research Signed into Law Following Senator Collins’ Advocacy
The historic level of funding keeps the U.S. on the path to preventing and treating this disease by 2025
Washington, D.C.— U.S. Senator Susan Collins, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee and a founder and co-chair of the Congressional Task Force on Alzheimer’s disease, announced that the government funding bill that was recently signed into law included an historic $3.48 billion to support Alzheimer’s research, which is a $289 million increase over the previous year’s appropriation.
Investing in Alzheimer’s research is one of Senator Collins’ top priorities due to the disease’s exorbitant human and financial costs. Nearly six million Americans are currently living with Alzheimer’s. This disease costs the United States an estimated $321 billion per year, including $206 billion in costs to Medicare and Medicaid. Without a breakthrough to prevent, slow, or cure Alzheimer’s, the number of Americans with Alzheimer’s is expected to more than double by 2050, with 12.7 million people age 65 and older projected to have Alzheimer’s disease by then.
“We have made tremendous progress in recent years to boost funding for Alzheimer’s research, and this legislation builds on that momentum,” said Senator Collins. “I have long championed increased investments for Alzheimer’s, which hold great promise for putting an end to this disease that has a devastating effect on millions of Americans and their families. The sustained, bipartisan commitment for this research brings us closer to the national goal of finding an effective means of prevention, treatment, and eventually, a cure.”
Since fiscal year 2015, Congress has increased research funding for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias by more than 500 percent, making it the largest expenditure of its kind at NIH.
The $3.48 billion for Alzheimer’s research includes $30.5 million for the Building Our Largest Dementia (BOLD) Infrastructure for Alzheimer’s Act and $29.5 million for Alzheimer's Disease Demonstration Programs. Senator Collins authored the BOLD Act, which became law in 2018, to develop a public health approach that will improve prevention, treatment, and care for Alzheimer’s disease.
In 2011, Senator Collins authored the National Alzheimer’s Project Act (NAPA), with then-Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN). NAPA convened a panel of experts, who determined that $2 billion per year in research funding is needed to achieve our goal of preventing and treating Alzheimer’s by the year 2025. Following the effort led by Senator Collins, annual funding for Alzheimer’s research surpassed this threshold for the first time in 2018 and has been sustained above $2 billion since then.
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