This was a very busy session today as many members and other visitors wanted to come and hear our speaker Mr David Jefferys talk about new dementia drugs and also the latest drug which has been announced in the media called Aducanumab. This ground breaking drug could slow Alzheimer’s disease change the lives of thousands of people living with dementia. Biogen’s drug – Aducanumab would be the first treatment to reduce the clinical decline of early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

Lisa introduced David and everyone gave him a warm welcome. David then introduced himself saying a little of his background. He was a Professor of Medicine and then he was asked to do a review of medicines in the UK and ended up doing this for 21 years. He was in charge of medicines licensing and medical equipment in the UK and setting up the European system.

He then decided to retire early and became an advisor to Eisai (which is also called Aricept) and other dementia drugs and became Senior Vice President discovering new drugs and new treatments for dementia and other neurological conditions.

David is also a Councillor for Bromley in charge of The Health & Well Being Board. Members then had the opportunity to ask David various questions. The session then followed with Bingo and David was happy to remain to call out the bingo numbers with Lisa. We are very grateful to David giving his time to attend our session today. Lisa thanked David and also mentioned to everyone that his wife Anne Marie will be the next Master of The Guild of Freemen and we would be delighted to welcome them both again.

Thank you to our volunteers today – Annette, Angela Chen, Theresa and Risom and Dr Angela and Mark