In 2014, Parkinson’s Australia commissioned Deloitte Access Economics to produce a report on Living with Parkinson's Disease: An updated economic analysis, which we used to develop the Parkinson's Australia Action Framework providing a very strong foundation for advocating for better care and support for those people in our community who live with Parkinson's everyday.

 

The Living with Parkinson's Disease: An updated economic analysis showed:

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• the very substantial cost to the community of Parkinson's with the total economic cost of Parkinson's of just under $10 billion per year;

• that this cost was going to escalate significantly over the coming years as the number of people with Parkinson's was going to grow at 3 times the rate of population growth;

• the impact that Parkinson's has on people who have this condition and their carers, families and friends;

• some very cost effective interventions that can be put in place by the Government that will assist people living with Parkinson’s to achieve a higher quality of life whilst at the same time reducing the cost to the community of this condition.

 

To view the full report, click here.  A one page summary of this report is also available here

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Following the publication of the Living with Parkinson's report and the Action Framework, Parkinson’s Australia lobbied the Federal government for the provision of funding to support Parkinson’s research through the Australian Parkinson’s Mission* (APM).  We were rewarded for our involvement in January 2019, with the announcement of a federal government funding package of $30 million, provided by the Medical Research Future Fund for the APM.  

 

The APM will test repurposed drugs in a world-first in Parkinson’s clinical trial design, which means effective treatments can be identified and fast tracked to people with the disease. Sequencing the genome of each patient, the Australian Parkinson’s Mission will establish a first step toward personalised medicine for Parkinson’s patients and will drive drug discovery in the future.

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To participate in this research and find out about other research participation opportunities, click here.

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*The Australian Parkinson’s Mission (the APM) is an Australian-led international collaboration between the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Shake It Up Australia Foundation, The Cure Parkinson’s Trust (UK), Michael J Fox Foundation (USA), Parkinson’s Australia and the University of Sydney. The APM supports an innovative program combining clinical trials with genomics research, biomarker analysis and induced pluripotent stem cell (iPS Cells) testing for people with Parkinson’s disease. The program has received $30 million in Federal Government funding, the most significant investment in Australian Parkinson’s research to date. The APM aims to identify and fast track effective treatments for people with Parkinson’s, increase access to repurposed and new drugs and identify potential diagnostic tools for Parkinson’s to enable early disease detection and intervention.