Senator Collins’ Two Bills to Combat Alzheimer’s Head to President’s Desk

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Susan Collins applauded the passage by the House of Representatives of two bipartisan bills that would cement and build on the important progress that has been made to prevent and effectively treat Alzheimer’s disease. The National Alzheimer's Project Act (NAPA) Reauthorization, which she authored with Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), and the Alzheimer’s Accountability and Investment Act (AAIA), which she authored with Senator Ed Markey (D-MA), now head to the President’s desk to be signed into law.

“We have made tremendous progress in recent years to boost funding for Alzheimer’s research, which holds great promise to end this disease that has had a devastating effect on millions of Americans and their families,” said Senator Collins, a founder and co-chair of the Congressional Task Force on Alzheimer’s Disease. “These two bills will maintain our momentum and make sure that we do not take our foot off the pedal just as our investments in basic research are beginning to translate into potential new treatments. We must not let Alzheimer’s to be one of the defining diseases of our children’s generation as it has ours.”

“I know from firsthand experience what a devastating illness Alzheimer’s disease is, as I watched my mother battle with it for a decade before her passing,” said Senator Warner, co-chair of the Congressional Task Force on Alzheimer’s Disease. “While we’ve made great strides in research, there is still so much work to be done to find effective ways to prevent and treat Alzheimer’s. On behalf of the millions of American families who have been touched by Alzheimer’s, I’m glad to see these two bills head to the president’s desk to be signed into law.”

“Since my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 1985, I have fought to ensure the federal government has the funding, resources, and coordination necessary to find a cure for this disease,” said Senator Markey, chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Subcommittee on Primary Health and Retirement Security and founder and co-chair of the Congressional Task Force on Alzheimer’s. “The National Alzheimer’s Plan Act and the Alzheimer’s Accountability Act have transformed our understanding of the disease and its risk factors for more than a decade. But our work is not yet done. Today’s extension of these bills until 2035 is a commitment from Congress that we will not stop fighting until Alzheimer’s is a disease only found in history books. I thank Senator Collins and my colleagues for their support in delivering hope to millions of families just like mine across the country as these two bills head to the President’s desk.”

More than six million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s. Alzheimer’s costs our nation an astonishing $360 billion per year, including $231 billion in costs to Medicare and Medicaid. If we continue along this trajectory, Alzheimer’s is projected to claim the minds of 13.8 million seniors by 2060 and nearly surpass $1 trillion in annual costs by 2050. In 2022, family caregivers provided 18 billion hours of unpaid care for loved ones with dementia.

In 2011, Senator Susan Collins authored the National Alzheimer's Project Act (NAPA) with then-Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN).  NAPA convened a panel of experts, who created a coordinated strategic national plan to prevent and effectively treat Alzheimer’s disease by 2025. The law is set to expire soon and must be reauthorized to ensure that research investments remain coordinated, and their impact is maximized.

The NAPA Reauthorization Act would:

• Reauthorize NAPA through 2035 and modernize the legislation to reflect strides that have been made to understand the disease, such as including a new focus on promoting healthy aging and reducing risk factors.
• Update language in recognition of the need to include underserved populations, including individuals with Down syndrome, who are at increased risk for Alzheimer’s as they age.

This bill is now endorsed by the National Down Syndrome Society, the National Down Syndrome Congress, and LuMind IDSC Foundation.

The Alzheimer’s Accountability and Investment Act would:

• Continue through 2035 a requirement that the Director of the National Institutes of Health submit an annual budget to Congress estimating the funding necessary to fully implement NAPA’s research goals.
  • Only two other areas of biomedical research – cancer and HIV/AIDS – have been the subject of special budget development aimed at speeding discovery.

In addition to Senators Collins, Warner, and Markey, both bills are cosponsored by Senators Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI).

The NAPA Reauthorization Act and the Alzheimer’s Accountability and Investment Act are endorsed by the Alzheimer’s Association and UsAgainstAlzheimer’s.

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