In this episode, we will cover the Fireside Debate ”Moonshots and Milestones: Is the Future of Neurodegeneration Drug Discovery in Startups, Big Pharma, or Academia?” that took place on March 17, 2026 at the AD/PD™ 2026 International Conference.

The debate was moderated by Dr. Henrietta Nielsen (Sweden) and Prof. Philip Scheltens (Netherlands), with expert contributions from Dr. Geoffrey Kerchner (Switzerland), Prof. Cynthia Lemere (USA), Dr. Mark Mintun (USA), Dr. Marco Prado (Canada), and Prof. Niranjan Bose (USA).

Key highlights from this session include:

• The field has moved from repeated uncertainty to cautious optimism, anchored by disease-modifying anti-amyloid therapies that demonstrably slow Alzheimer's progression

• Acceptance of biological heterogeneity in dementia, and how biomarker-driven stratification has reshaped diagnosis and trial design

• The persistent gap between biomarker change and clinically meaningful outcomes, with cognition, function and independence remaining the endpoints that matter most

• Blood-based biomarkers as potentially transformative for moving diagnosis beyond specialist centers into neurology clinics and primary care

• Complementary views on the field's bottlenecks — surrogate endpoints and recruitment for industry, funding and slow translation for academia, outdated cognitive tools, and fragmented data infrastructure

• The growing role of AI, multimodal data and data harmonization, alongside recognition that neurodegeneration still lags other fields in deploying AI

• Strong support for combination therapy, with anti-amyloid treatment as an anchor and tau-directed or anti-inflammatory strategies layered on top

• A closing consensus on the ideal ecosystem: openness, cross-sector collaboration, data sharing, smarter enrollment, sustained patient engagement, and support for early-career investigators

The panel conveyed that disease modification is now real but still modest, that blood-based biomarkers are poised to reshape diagnostic and treatment pathways, and that future progress will depend on combination approaches, better surrogate markers, and coordinated collaboration across the neurodegeneration ecosystem. Encouragingly, participants agreed the next breakthrough should not take another 25 years — the field now has working therapies, sharper tools, and better biological resolution than ever before.

This episode is particularly relevant for neurologists, clinical trialists, translational scientists, biotech and pharma professionals, academic researchers, data and AI experts, and patient advocacy leaders working across the neurodegenerative disease landscape.

This podcast was created using AI to provide a concise and insightful summary of an AD/PD™ 2026 session. While every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, listeners are encouraged to consult official conference materials for detailed information.

The AD/PD™ 2026 International Conference on Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Diseases and related neurological disorders took place March 17–21, 2026, in Copenhagen, Denmark.

🔗 https://adpd.kenes.com