Boston MA, US and London UK – 31 July 2026. uMed today announced the launch of AccessBrainHealth, a landmark international study, sponsored by Cohort Science, designed to uncover how Parkinson's disease begins before symptoms appear.
- Delivered by uMed and Queen Mary University of London (Queen Mary), and supported by the Global Parkinson's Genetics Program (GP2), a resource program of Aligning Science Across Parkinson's (ASAP) and implemented by The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, the study will follow up to 1,000 participants across the UK and US to identify and track the earliest biological changes linked to the disease.
- AccessBrainHealth will generate one of the most comprehensive datasets of pre-diagnostic Parkinson's biology to date by combining comprehensive biological sampling, including blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), with long-term electronic health record data and patient-reported outcomes.
- Parkinson's disease affects more than 10 million people worldwide, but by the time it is diagnosed, the damage is often irreversible. By detecting the disease earlier, AccessBrainHealth aims to create new opportunities to intervene sooner and improve outcomes for patients.
- With uMed's strategic partnership with WellSky, the study expands across the US, giving patients at more than 10,000 home-based care organisations the opportunity to participate.
- In parallel, UK participant recruitment is being delivered through NHS partnerships and Queen Mary's clinical leadership, working to bolster international efforts to accelerate disease-modifying therapies.
- The study's initial focus is on identifying early changes associated with Parkinson's, but it is also intended to help early identification of other brain-related diseases.
“AccessBrainHealth represents a step-change in how we study Parkinson's disease. For the first time, we are combining the scale and real-world reach of a decentralised research platform with the depth of biomarker science, and doing so in populations that have too often been overlooked. If we can redefine the earliest chapter of the Parkinson's story to detect Parkinson's earlier, we have a real opportunity to change its course.”Dr Matt Wilson, CEO and Founder, uMed
Why the earliest stage matters
Parkinson's disease develops silently over many years due to its prolonged preclinical phase, during which pathological processes are already active, often for years or even decades before diagnosis. By the time motor symptoms appear and a diagnosis is confirmed, substantial and irreversible neurological damage has typically occurred.
Identifying people at the earliest biological stages of the disease is one of the most pressing challenges, and a priority for Parkinson's research. This will help provide the key to development and evaluation of effective disease-modifying therapies.
Participants will continue to be followed over time through uMed's ACCESS platform, a research platform that enables large groups of people to take part in studies through their everyday healthcare, whilst researchers track their real-world health outcomes over time, with ongoing electronic health data linkage and regular patient-reported outcome tracking. Unlike traditional studies, this approach enables continuous, real-world follow-up at scale, helping to generate more complete and representative data on how Parkinson's develops over time.
A transatlantic delivery model
AccessBrainHealth will recruit participants across both the UK and the US. In the UK, clinical leadership will be provided by Queen Mary and participating clinical research facilities, with Professor Alastair Noyce, a leading authority on Parkinson's disease and its earliest stages, serving as Coordinating Investigator.
“The window before Parkinson's is clinically diagnosed is where the greatest scientific opportunity lies, and the greatest practical difficulty. AccessBrainHealth has been designed to meet that challenge: recruiting from an engaged participant cohort, collecting high-quality biological samples under a rigorous clinical protocol, and linking those samples to long-term health data. I'm delighted to be leading this study to understand more about the earliest stages of neurological disease.”Professor Alastair Noyce, Coordinating Investigator, Queen Mary University of London
Across the US, uMed will continue to partner with WellSky to identify and engage eligible participants through its extensive network of home-based care organisations. By combining WellSky's network with uMed's automated registry platform, the collaboration creates a scalable, transatlantic model for collecting high-quality biological samples from patients, particularly underserved, rural, and ageing populations, who want to participate in Parkinson's disease research.
