Alliance for Aging Research

The Alliance for Aging Research aims to change the narrative to achieve healthy aging and equitable access to care.

The Alliances strives to achieve its goals through a variety of activities and initiatives:
- Guide efforts to substantially increase funding and focus for aging at the National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration;
- Build influential coalitions to guide groundbreaking regulatory improvements for age-related diseases; and
- Create award-winning, high-impact educational materials to improve the health and well-being of older adults and their family caregivers.

For over 35 years, the Alliance has been a leading nonprofit force advancing the science of aging and health, educating health care consumers and medical professionals, and advocating for public policies to promote aging research and higher quality of life for older Americans. For this reason, the Alliance has become a valued advocacy organization and a respected influential voice with policymakers.

The Alliance is led by a team of experts in non-profit management, public health, health education, and public policy. These leaders, along with the entire organization, meet the highest possible standards to be accurate, objective, and ethically sound in all of its activities, communications, educational materials, and public statements.

The Alliance also has a history of collaboration with other organizations in order to achieve our goals of improving the health and independence of the aging population. The Alliance stands ready to develop effective partnerships with those who share our scientific, educational, health and policy goals.

In the last 3.5 decades, the “small but mighty" Alliance for Aging Research has racked up a pretty impressive list of accomplishments. Here are just a few:

The Alliance was one of the main organizations that advocated for the NIH doubling, increasing NIH's budget from $13.7 to $27.1 billion between 1999 and 2003.

In 1990, the Alliance teamed with former Cabinet Secretary Joseph Califano to convince Congress to establish a network of Claude Pepper Older Americans Independence Centers. The goal of the OAIC program, which exists today at 16 major academic institutions, is to increase scientific knowledge that allows older adults to maintain or restore their independence.

Also in the early 1990s, the Alliance devised a plan with the Commonwealth Fund to raise support for physician-scientists to train in geriatrics. This effort was the basis for today's highly-prestigious Paul Beeson Award program at the NIA, which to date has awarded more than 180 scholars from across the nation for advanced research projects in aging.

The Alliance was also a maverick on human embryonic stem cell research, launching a new patient coalition and leading CAMR, the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research. After several years of tough fighting on the Hill, in 2009 President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order to repeal major restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research funds.

In 2006, the Alliance launched the Accelerate Cure and Treatments for Alzheimer's Disease—or ACT-AD—coalition. For 10 years, ACT-AD has brought together patient advocates, researchers, industry, and government agencies, to convene with the FDA to tackle major barriers in Alzheimer's disease clinical development.

Also in 2006, the Alliance started its Silver Book series, a highly-respected resource that provides statistics on the human and economic burden of diseases in the 65+ population, and uniquely highlights areas of innovation.

In 2016, the Alliance-led Aging in Motion coalition pushed for the CDC to establish the first-ever ICD-10 code for sarcopenia. The Alliance also established an annual National Heart Valve Disease Awareness Day on February 22.

The Alliance continues to focus and explore the value of aging, especially how to calculate value for the 1 in 4 Americans—and 3 in 4 Americans aged 65 and older—who are living with multiple chronic conditions and using multiple treatments at the same time. The Alliance will explore what value is placed on our society's older adults and their health and will do this through facilitating webcasts with the Bipartisan Policy Center, participating in the World Economic Forum Committee on Human Enhancement, and engaging the FDA review divisions on Alzheimer's disease and sarcopenia clinical development.