![Former ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel wants to make a difference each day and is overhauling dementia organisations.](/content/dam/images/g/o/b/r/6/c/image.related.afrArticleLead.620x350.gte3ks.png/1483600491992.jpg)
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Busting cartels and having bruising battles with big companies that had over-stepped the mark proved a huge intellectual challenge for former Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Graeme Samuel.
Samuel finished his eight-year term at the ACCC in 2013 but he still has a vast array of chairmanships and directorships across academia, health, public policy and sport. There is one, however, which has a particularly personal connection.
Samuel, 70, is the national president of Alzheimer's Australia, a position he's held since mid-2014. He says while solid progress is being made, it needs to accelerate faster.
"It is an insidious disease," he says. About 350,000 Australians have some form of dementia, and the number is growing by around 1800 per week.
Samuel's mother Shirley died in 2006 after suffering from the disease for more than 10 years. After being cared for by family members she lived out her final days in an aged care facility in the Melbourne suburb of Malvern.
On the administrative front, Samuel has pushed hard for a streamlining of state-based organisations to bring about a "unification" under one stronger national body, which itself is progressively changing its name to Dementia Australia to properly capture the full range of diseases of which Alzheimer's is the most well-known.
"This will allow very significant funds to be unlocked and remove duplication so it can be allocated to research," he says. The unification project is scheduled to be finished by mid-2017.
Strong leadership
Samuel says right from the outset his approach was to provide strong leadership.
"I'm not a clinician. I know where the focus and the energy needs to be," he says.
He likens it to a telecommunications executive. At the beginning, they don't need to know every intricate detail about the latest developments in telecommunications, but need energy and a comprehensive big-picture view. "They can acquire some of the specialist skills in the first year."
"My knowledge of dementia started with my mother," he says.
Samuel, who was an investment banker early in his career, says there has been some overlap with his work at the ACCC and at Alzheimer's Australia.
He has tried to bring about a much more collaborative approach among Australia's researchers. He recalls bringing together 27 of the leading researchers in the field and trying to get them to work more closely together. There had been an element of secrecy and selfishness for future personal scientific glory that he tried to end.
"I'm a great advocate of competition. But in this area collaboration is the other big 'C'," he says.
He talks about "cure and care" as being the two big areas of focus. But he's blunt that cure must rank ahead of care, even though high-quality care is a crucial element.
But by finding a cure, this should eventually circumvent the need for vast resources on the "care component".
"What we really need to do is to stop it happening again," he says. The world of research is also changing rapidly as various research strands come up against roadblocks, and then other avenues open up.
Serious re-assessment
In late November 2016 US pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly & Co saw its share price plunge when it revealed an experimental Alzheimer's disease treatment known as solanezumab had failed to slow loss of cognitive ability in people with a mild form of the disease.
Solanezumab had been viewed as one of the most promising drugs, with research based on a theory that it was a protein called beta amyloid that formed toxic plaques on the brain and that the drug helped clear them away. But it was not to be.
"It really has brought the research world back into some serious re-assessment," Samuel says.
Changes in the way aged care is to be funded in Australia will also have profound implications, with investors in aged cares stocks such as Estia Health, Japara Healthcare and Regis Healthcare all to be impacted. The shift is one he describes as being away from more of a "hotel facility" to one with more specialist help.
"I call it more complex care," he says.
While there is immense sadness for families and friends of dementia suffers, he says he's looking for positive outcomes and is driven by a motivation to do something each day which is capable of making society a better place. "I want to make a difference each day. Whether it was at the ACCC, or in competition policy or dementia it's all about trying to make a difference."