Alzheimer's disease public‐private partnerships: A landscape of the global nonprofit community

With the prevalence of dementia expected to exceed 115 million worldwide by 2050 [1], stakeholders across all sectors of society recognize the need for an aggressive, coordinated, and global response. Similar challenges have been faced in the past and provide models for how to mount an effective response today. In the mid-1950s and early 1960s, patient advocacy organizations, pharmaceutical companies, and public health agencies came together to provide polio vaccine to 400 million children, reducing the incidence of this dreaded disease by 90% in the United States [2]. More than 20 years later, polio was again the target in the creation of the world’s largest public-private partnership, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, spearheaded by national governments from around the world, the World Health Organization (WHO), Rotary International, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Key partners included the Bill andMelinda Gates Foundation and many pharmaceutical companies. Between 1988 and 2012, polio cases had decreased by over 99% [3]. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) represents a problem that, like polio in the 1950s, is too big for any one entity to address. The National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease [4] recognized the enormity of the challenge and the need for building coordinated partnerships with multiple stakeholders. Indeed, public-private partnerships have played an important role in the global effort related to AD, as exemplified by the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), and subsequently, Worldwide ADNI [5]. Since its inception, ADNI has represented a true public-private partnership, with initial