The Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) has announced a $200 million commitment from the families of Leonard A. and Ronald S. Lauder to accelerate the discovery and development of drugs to prevent and treat Alzheimer’s disease.

The largest gift to the foundation—established in 1998 by the Lauder brothers in honor of their mother, the eponymous founder of the cosmetics company Estée Lauder—will help bring to market a generation of drug treatments that can be used in combination with anti-amyloid therapies to stop Alzheimer’s disease. According to the foundation, the funding will enable ADDF to accelerate the approval of promising drugs, explore the full potential of current clinical studies, and move the most promising research forward. One such innovation is the understanding of novel biomarkers that will be key to developing personalized drug combinations for each patient’s unique disease pathology, improving clinical trial designs, and allowing researchers to identify which drugs will be most effective for each patient.

“This disease cannot be solved in a vacuum, and the Lauder family understands no one goes through Alzheimer’s alone,” said ADDF chief executive Mark Roithmayr. “This gift enables the ADDF to continue convening the world’s best and brightest minds to solve this disease while reinvesting every penny back into the science and innovating the drug pipeline."

“When my brother and I began this project 25 years ago, there was little hope on the horizon for Alzheimer's disease,” said ADDF co-founder and co-chair Ronald S. Lauder. “As this research continues to progress, we will have prevention programs to slow this disease before it begins, diagnostic tools to tell us what each person's disease looks like, and effective treatments to eradicate it for future generations.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/ Pornpak Khunatorn)