Microsoft co-founder and ex-CEO Bill Gates has announced a $100 million personal commitment to fight Alzheimer’s. He will be investing money into the Dementia Discovery Fund which seeks to discover treatments for this disease. This contribution isn’t being made by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation which already runs countless philanthropic projects across the globe. Gates will provide this $100 million himself.
Bill Gates will first invest $50 million in the Dementia Discovery Fund. It’s a venture capital fund that seeks to bring together industry and government to try and find treatments for this brain-wasting disease.
He will follow up that investment with an additional $50 million which will be provided to the startup ventures that are working in Alzheimer’s research.
As people live longer, the number of people suffering from this disease and other forms of dementia continues to rise. It takes a growing emotional and financial toll on people suffering from this disease.
“It’s a huge problem, a growing problem, and the scale of the tragedy – even for the people who stay alive – is very high,” Gates told Reuters in an interview.
Even though there has been decades of scientific research on Alzheimer’s, there’s no treatment to slow the progression of the disease. Existing drugs can only ease some of the symptoms.
Gates is optimistic that with focused and well-funded innovation treatments can be found, even if it may take a decade to reach them.
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