2024 Lifetime Achievement Award in Alzheimer’s Disease Therapeutic Research Presented to Lars Lannfelt, MD, PhD

Lars Lannfelt, MD, PhD has been recognized as the recipient of the 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award in Alzheimer’s Disease Therapeutic Research at the 17th annual Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease (CTAD) conference. Dr. Lannfelt was selected based on his pioneering work in Alzheimer disease (AD) scientific discoveries and drug development, and he presented a keynote address on the topic of Leqembi (lecanemab-irmb; Eisai, Tokyo, Japan; Biogen, Cambridge, MA) at the conference.

Dr. Lannfelt serves as Professor Emeritus of the Uppsala Universitet Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences: Molecular Geriatrics and the Rudbeck Laboratory in Uppsala, Sweden, where he has been affiliated since 2001. In a statement about the award, CTAD recognized Dr. Lannfelt’s contributions to the detection of the Swedish mutation, which is associated with AD in a large family in Sweden and a 3- to 5-times higher production of amyloid beta (Aβ). He is also recognized for contributing to the discovery of the Arctic mutation identified in a 4-generation family in northern Sweden, which is associated with a propensity to generate Aβ protofibrils.

In 2003, based on insights from his work on the Swedish and Arctic mutations, Dr. Lannfelt cofounded BioArctic (Stockholm, Sweden), a pharmaceutical company working to develop innovative drugs for people with disorders of the central nervous system (CNS) including AD, Parkinson disease (PD), and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). In 2004, Dr. Lannfelt was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He has also been recognized as a past recipient of the Khalid Iqbal Lifetime Achievement Award in Alzheimer’s Disease Research, as well as the 2024 recipient of the European Grand Prix of La Fondation Recherche Alzheimer in Paris.