New Hope in the Fight Against Alzheimer’s

How one organization’s innovative approach is a pathway to a cure

Ric Edelman: It's Friday, June 2nd. You want a secure job for the future? You know, we've talked about the disruption of technological innovation on so many careers around the world. There's one category of company that is thriving in today's uncertain economy. That's the luxury brand marketplace. People can't get enough of exotic cars and rare wine and $50,000 handbags. Companies that manufacture these goods are skyrocketing.

I'm talking about their need for artisans. Artisans make these products by hand. Yeah, Ferraris and Rolls-Royces are manufactured by hand, and so are Hermes handbags. It takes 15 hours to make a single handbag. And Hermes doesn't have enough workers to meet the demand because it takes a lot of skill and training. And I don't think you're going to get that kind of a training in an ordinary college classroom. These jobs command therefore very high salaries plus annual bonuses of 150% of pay.

The world's biggest luxury group is LVMH. They are the owners of dozens of the biggest luxury brands on the planet. Last year, they hired 60,000 people and they're hiring 15,000 more this year just in France. That includes 3,500 artisanal workers. And they're not just hiring college grads. They're also hiring career changers and older workers who are discovering that the skill set that they have is being eliminated by automation. Artisanship is something automation specifically won't eliminate.

So if you're looking for a job that is going to pay well, be fascinating, work with products that you can really point to with pride of saying, ‘look what I did’, then you should really consider artisanship in the luxury goods marketplace. This is just further illustration that while we are eliminating an awful lot of jobs because technology makes humans obsolete. Thanks to AI and robotics, a whole new wave of occupations is emerging. And this is why we have to rethink college and career.

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Exclusive Interview: Mark Roithmayr of the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation

How venture philanthropy is reshaping the world of cognitive decline research and development

Ric Edelman: We talk a lot about Alzheimer's on this program because Alzheimer's is sadly in a lot of our futures. And there are a lot of organizations doing an awful lot of work trying to defeat this dreadful disease. I want to tell you about a very special one. It is the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation.  I'm very happy to welcome on to the program the CEO of the ADDF, Mark Roithmayr. Mark, welcome to the program.

Mark Roithmayr: Fabulous to be here. Ric.

Ric Edelman: Mark, tell us about the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation, because this is a very different type of Alzheimer's research organization.

Mark Roithmayr: It really is, Ric. It was founded 25 years ago by the Lauder family, and that's as in Estee Lauder and the Estee Lauder Corporation. Estée passed at the end of her life from Alzheimer's. But before she passed, she left a trust for her two sons, Leonard and Ronald Lauder. And to say, you know, do something about this thing called Alzheimer's, because it was in the family, including her sister. And the Lauders set out, they scoured the earth, to say what would they do about Alzheimer's and they came back with a couple of different ideas. One, they would fund science, but a certain type of science, translational science had to go from the bench to the bedside, high risk, high reward signs. That was one.

Two, they would not make grants to academic institutions and to biotechs. Rather, they would make investments to academic institutions and biotechs that were pursuing Alzheimer's from bench to the bedside. The thought there was if those academic institutions or if those biotechs ever saw a positive deal flow coming from those ideas, a percentage of that would go back to the ADDF. That would immediately put back into science. That's how we are called a venture philanthropy.

Ric Edelman: And this approach is unique in the marketplace and it really is incredibly powerful, this notion of venture philanthropy, where instead of simply raising money from donors that you can then give to scientists as grants and you have to constantly raise new money to raise more and more money for those grants, you have a recycling going on. You're basically saying, we will fund your project, but if it works and you get a drug into the marketplace and you start to make billions of dollars, we're going to get some of that profit. It's going to go back into our nonprofit organization, and we're going to be able to use it to fund more research and continue this wonderful pipeline. This is a really exciting approach. And you have attracted some really very major donors as a result who are really interested in this model, not just the Lauder family, but Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mackenzie Scott and in fact, the latter's have just made a commitment. That was international news a couple of weeks ago. Talk about the $200 million that they've just committed. 

Mark Roithmayr: They cover all of the overhead of the organization so that anybody that donates 100% of their money goes directly into the prevention, the diagnostics and the treatments. Right. So there's nothing taken out of that. Another part of that interesting model is since we've started, we've seen $30 million of return on investment that we've put back in. Leonard is now 90 years old and Leonard, as he looks out over the next couple of years, he gathered the whole family together: Leonard and Ronald, Leonard's two sons, William and Gary, and Ronald's two daughters, Erin and Jane. So it's the third generation now coming into this. They made a commitment of the family, $200 million to cover the expenses for the next 15 years of the organization, because what's going on in the science now, what we're driving in the science now shows it's going to pay off in a five to 10-to-15-year period. And what the lawyers are hoping is this is a leveraged gift to get more people to come in with money so that 10 to 15 years we can shorten down to 5 to 10 years.  

Ric Edelman: What's the annual budget of the organization? 

Mark Roithmayr: We have 200 to 300 donors who donate to us about $30 million a year, and we call that our multiple shots on goal. We're always putting it into new science, new science, new science. Then there's a $100 million fund, and this is the Gates and the Bezos and the Mackenzie Scott money. Now, we're four years into a six-year plan with that money that's looking at new diagnostics, which is a fascinating area that's exploding right now. Right. Because you have to be able to diagnose it before you know how to specifically treat it. On top of that, we have another $100 million fund that we've raised about three quarters of  the money right now, and it's focusing on a very specific part of the pipeline.

If you look at we have about 35 clinical trials we're funding and if you look at a bulk of them, these are phase two A trials.  And what does that mean? Phase one trials are when you prove it's safe. Phase two trials is when you show it's not only safe, but somehow the molecule or whatever you're funding, you are engaging in what you ultimately want to see in the treatment. And then the phase three is these big trials that Pharma run, right? Our job is to get them into phase three that Pharma takes them on. These phase two as we have really interesting science, but they're underpowered studies, maybe 60 to 120 patients in them, enough to show some engagement, but not show the plurality that you're really looking for when you're getting into the thousands and tens of thousands. And that's phase three. So this $100 million clinical trials fund is another fund that we're looking just pinpoint those phase two A's to either speed them along or kill them fast if it's not going to work. So we can, again, take the capital that's coming in and deploy it into new and better things. 

Ric Edelman: As you're talking about the area to focus on diagnostics, which is a new big deal, there's also a new holy grail of Alzheimer's treatment, a combination of therapy and precision medicine. Talk about those. 

Mark Roithmayr: So, you know, all of it is connected, right? Ric So first of all, what's happening with these diagnostics these days? It used to be you just had to get a PET scan to diagnose... you know, are you at risk of Alzheimer's? And those are expensive and they're not routinely done. Two summers ago, a company that we're funding called C2N Diagnostics out of Saint Louis came up with a blood test that now can diagnose and look out. And we're finding a series of other things that aren't only looking at blood tests, which are much faster and quicker and easier and less expensive, and you can just do it at your doctor. We're funding a company right now out of Canada that when you go to your annual eye exam, they'll be able to tell you if you have plaques and tangles forming in your brain and if they are, you're at risk to Alzheimer's. That's the diagnostics part. What's happened here in the last 2 or 3 years that's kind of exploding the whole area of Alzheimer's, which, of course, people have heard of, nothing works in Alzheimer's. That's really started to change in the last three years. Number one, we know prevention works. There are basic lifestyle changes that you can make that we know now, scientifically proven, will push out the onset of early symptoms or early warning signs of Alzheimer's by 40%. 

Ric Edelman: We're talking about things like diet, exercise and stress, sleep and so on. 

Mark Roithmayr: Social interaction. Right. It's been proved there's something called the finger study. It's done out of Sweden. It's done in 49 countries. They do this every year. They're testing with diverse populations. It goes cuts across all populations. Really, really interesting. But that then brings up the chance to start doing what you call this Holy Grail combined therapies. Well, what if we took prevention and we know can work and then started dropping in a therapeutic intervention and you and many of your listeners and followers might have heard of a diabetes drug called metformin. And metformin is also a drug that affects aging. And what we're doing right now with Dr. Miia Kivipelto out of Sweden is a combined trial that has these lifestyle preventions as well as people taking metformin. And does that even push it out even further? Right. So this is kind of where it's going. So that's an example of combining trials. The other big thing that we're seeing in the headlines almost daily at this point is for the first time in 20 years, that we're seeing any therapeutic come to market that can really benefit people's cognitive health. 

What these drugs are showing is a modest improvement in cognition, about a 25 to 35% improvement in the delay of cognitive decline. We're thrilled about that. But as I said, it's modest. What are we really looking for? You know, 75, 85, 95, 100% effectiveness. Think about this Ric. My wonderful mother-in-law who passed two years ago, she was 93, going on 94 when she passed. The last ten years of her life, we watched her go from mild to moderate to severe dementia. By the end, not understanding, you know, who her children were,  who were her grandchildren, and not understanding that a favorite granddaughter was about to have her great grandchild. That was lost. And these were things she lived for, right? Absolutely lived for. You think about delaying that by 40%, then putting something there that's another extra 25% or 35% and then thinking, so how many of those ten years could have been Now she understood all of that versus this fade away that she did. And that's really what we're going for... How can we treat, how can we delay, how can we prevent? 

Ric Edelman: You know, it sounds like the level of optimism, the level of hope, is that a higher level than it's been in decades? We've spent, I think, collectively, what, $30 billion over the past 30 or 40 years on efforts to fight Alzheimer's? Frankly, extraordinarily little to show for it. And yet we seem to be on the precipice of some pretty major advances that we have been waiting for an incredibly long time. What accounts for this? Is it the amount of money that we've been throwing at this? Is it the amount of time we've been spending? Is it the technological innovation that is now allowing this to come to fruition? Why suddenly are we on the precipice of these major breakthroughs? 

Mark Roithmayr: Yeah, probably the most honest answer is yes, yes, yes and yes. But let me break it down a little bit. Right. Think about cancer. Think about it was in the early 70s when the war on cancer was declared and now we're 70 years later. And look, there's blood cancers, other cancers, if you have them, so long as you stay on the protocol, that's not what's going to take your life and you're going to have a quality of life if you stay on the on these protocols. So all of us are aging and like anything else, we all age differently. And why? Right. It's our genetics. It might be how we handle inflammation. It might be vascular, right? Mitochondrial. Our biologies are all a little bit different. Right. And what this biology of aging theory is looking at when you age normally, it's all okay. The old saying is, you know, if as you get older, if you forget where your keys are, that's normal. But if you don't know what your keys are for, that's a real serious problem. Right? And again, we age differently.

So the biology of aging is looking at these 6 or 7 different pathways of aging. Right. And they're saying when something goes wrong, what is that? How can we stop it? How can we prevent it and or how can we treat it right? So when we talk about this combined therapy biology of aging approach, now it's going to be this amyloid drugs, right, which are 25 to 35% effective. And what we're seeing now is drugs that target inflammation, drugs treatments that target genetics and treatments that target vascular issues. Your mitochondrial right, what will be good for you and combined therapies, might be different than me, might be different from the next person. Again, very much like cancer. Aging is the number one cause of Alzheimer's, where it goes wrong. Figuring out how to get it right is what the Holy Grail is here. 

Ric Edelman: So I'm very happy to tell you not only how impressed I am with the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation, the work that Dr. Howard Fillit and Mark Roithmayr are doing with this organization, but Mark has invited me to join the board of ADDF, which I have agreed to do. So I'm very happy to be participating in the organization and supporting the philanthropic and governance goals that you have for the effort that you have in so many ways in the fight against Alzheimer's. So I'm really excited to be joining the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation with you, Mark, and I know we'll be spending a lot of time together as a result. You do accept and constantly seek donations like any other well-deserving nonprofit. You're looking for donors all the time. If folks would like to donate, knowing that 100% of the donations go directly to research, how do people support the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation? 

Mark Roithmayr: Just go to ALZ discovery.org and most importantly, they're one. You'll get a sense of this optimism and excitement and see all the latest in the most cutting-edge research to if you want to know the basic ways to go about preventing Alzheimer's. There's a part of the website called Cognitive Vitality. It can tell you everything from does drinking coffee help or a glass of wine, or how many glasses of wine? Or what about these supplements that people see at their local pharmacies? Are they any good? All of that great information is in there. And obviously there's a way to donate directly to the cause. And there I just want to acknowledge you and your wife. You know, both of you have made this very clear that you have different philanthropic interests. One is Alzheimer's because it's affecting too many people and we need to do something about that. And I just want to acknowledge that what you have chosen as some of your philanthropic pursuits here, I really applaud and admire, and it's great to have you join the board. 

Ric Edelman: I appreciate that, Mark, very much. The goal that Jean and I have always had with our philanthropic activities is impact. And the ADDF is having an incredible impact in the fight against Alzheimer's, which is why we're really honored to be joining the organization. Again, you can reach them at ALZ discovery.org. The link is in your show notes today. That's Mark Roithmayr, the CEO of the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation. Mark, thanks for joining us on the show. 

Mark Roithmayr: Really a pleasure, Ric Thank you. 

Ric Edelman: You know, every week my wife Jean produces her own podcast and it's available on her website, Self-care with Jean.com. Go check out her videocast and podcast at Self-care with Jean.com. 

If you like what you're hearing on this podcast, leave a review for the truth about your future on Apple. I read all the reviews and I might share yours on the air. Have a great weekend. 

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