Craig W Ritchie

Craig Ritchie is a Scottish professor of psychiatry specialising in the early diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer's disease. He is the founder and chief executive officer of Scottish Brain Sciences and Professor of Brain Health and Neurodegenerative Disease at the University of St Andrews.

Ritchie has argued for detecting Alzheimer's disease in midlife, decades before the onset of dementia symptoms, an approach he has termed "brain health". He previously held the Chair in Psychiatry of Ageing at the University of Edinburgh and was the inaugural Director of Brain Health Scotland, a government-funded dementia prevention initiative.

Early life and education Ritchie was born in Aberdeen, Scotland. He attended Aberdeen Grammar School before studying at the University of Aberdeen, graduating with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBChB) in 1991. He returned to the United Kingdom in 2000 and completed an MSc in Epidemiology and, between 2002 and 2006, a PhD in Mental Health at University College London, funded by a Medical Research Council Health Services Research Fellowship. In this role, he advocated for a distinct national brain health strategy focused on public health, risk reduction and early detection, alongside existing dementia care strategies.

Scottish Brain Sciences In 2022, Ritchie founded Scottish Brain Sciences, a company that runs clinical trials and research into diagnostics and therapeutics for neurodegenerative disease, opening its first clinical research centre in Edinburgh.

His resignation was raised in the Scottish Parliament during First Minister's Questions, where MSP Claire Baker asked for the Scottish Government's response; First Minister Humza Yousaf said the government shared Ritchie's ambition to improve dementia care and took his criticisms seriously.

Ritchie then became full-time CEO of Scottish Brain Sciences, which operates a "triple helix" model connecting life-sciences companies, universities and the health sector. In August 2023, BBC News reported on the company's partnership with Roche Diagnostics to develop a blood test for earlier detection of Alzheimer's disease. In November 2025, Scotland's Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes attended the opening of a new Scottish Brain Sciences research centre at the ONE BioHub in Aberdeen.

Research roles and projects European Prevention of Alzheimer's Dementia (EPAD): From 2015 to 2020, Ritchie led the EPAD Consortium, a €64 million Innovative Medicines Initiative-funded project that built a longitudinal cohort of over 2,000 participants as a trial-readiness platform. PREVENT Dementia Programme: Ritchie is Chief Investigator of PREVENT, a multi-centre cohort study examining midlife (ages 40–59) risk factors for dementia.

Media Ritchie has appeared in national media discussing dementia prevention and NHS dementia care. He was interviewed by The Sunday Times about his NHS resignation in May 2023 and about dementia research in February 2024. He was interviewed by Michael Mosley for the BBC Two programme Trust Me, I'm a Doctor in 2015, and featured in the BBC Scotland documentary Sally Magnusson: Alzheimer's, a Cure and Me in 2024.

Selected publications Ritchie, C.W., et al. (2016). "Development of interventions for the secondary prevention of Alzheimer's dementia: the European Prevention of Alzheimer's Dementia (EPAD) project." The Lancet Psychiatry. Ritchie, C.W., Trepel, D., et al. (2025). "The impact of mild cognitive impairment on healthcare utilization and costs: A UK Biobank study." Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring.