ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE SOLUTIONS
WITH DR. JOHN H. REX
Latest Newsletters
Dear All,When I wrote earlier this year (23 Jan 2025 newsletter) that the January 2025 PACCARB meeting (Presidential Advisory Council on Combatting Antimicrobial Resistant Bacteria) had been cancelled, we had all hoped this would be a transient adjustment and that the very important work of PACCARB would resume in due course. Unfortunately, this has yet come to pass. In the interim, a new player has arrived on the U.S. AMR stage – the AMR Strategic Coalition (ASC), an independent, non-governmental, cross-sector coalition formed to create a unified U.S. policy position on AMR and to amplify stakeholder voices across One Health. ASC is convening an Executive Advisory Council made up of public-health, scientific, veterinary, industry, and advocacy organizations to build consensus and generate actionable policy positions.In short, you could think of it as a PACCARB without the P. And significantly, the key staff behind the ASC are the same folks who had been supporting PACCARB.ASC is framed as a coordinating, consensus-building body with the goal of being an independent convener that translates diverse stakeholder views into practical, implementable recommendations for government and international bodies. Now more than ever, advancing policy on AMR in the US requires synchronized, cross-sector inputs bridging clinical, animal, agricultural,...
Dear All (and with thanks...
Dear All,Earlier this year (20...
Latest Government Action
Dear All, I am pleased to learn that BARDA is holding a one-day innovation symposium on 20 Nov 2025. As you know, BARDA is a consistently creative funder of diverse medical countermeasures, including new antibiotics. For background, see these prior newsletters:22 Jul 2025 newsletter: "BARDA RFP: Antibiotic for HABP/VABP or Bloodstream Infection"5 Nov 2024 newsletter: "BARDA seeks deep insight on antibacterials near/beyond end-of-Phase 2"12 Nov 2023 newsletter: "Fireside Chat with BARDA’s Branch Chief for Antimicrobials".The video from this newsletter (see also below my signature) is highly recommended as a primer on that way that Team BARDA think about medical countermeasures!26 Sep 2023 newsletter: "BARDA Medical Countermeasures BAA: Substantial updates"BARDA's BAA-23-100-SOL-00004 is open through Sep 2028!As to the 1-day symposium, it runs 9a-5p ET on 20 Nov 2025 in Washington DC. Let me quote from the announcement (highlights added by me):"Join us in person for an engaging showcase of early-stage health security innovations supported by BARDA through our Division of Research, Innovation, and Ventures (DRIVe), the BARDA Accelerator Network, BARDA Ventures, BLUE KNIGHT, and CARB-X. "The symposium will bring together BARDA-supported innovators, U.S. government partners, investors, strategic partners, and other key stakeholders to highlight technologies and foster collaborations to advance the development of medical...
Dear All,Referring back to the...
Dear All,Attention phage developers --...
Dear All,D-Day and the momentous Normandy...
Dear All,If you represent a...
Dear All, Sadly, I must...
Dear All (and with thanks...
R&D Insight
Addendum: This is the first...
Dear All,No one is safe...
Dear All: Per an email...
Dear All: I would like...
Dear All: FDA has now posted a...
Dear All,The US Department of...
Dear All, Two mid-week notes:...
Can you help?
Dear All,I have just learned that Lifeline, the musical formerly known as The Mould that Changed the World, is seeking scientists, medics, and healthcare professionals to be part of the cast for a portion of a planned 5-week off-Broadway run of the show around the time of the High-Level Meeting (HLM) on AMR at UNGA 2024 in New York City...
Dear All, Heads up! Having...
Note: Be sure to take...
Update on 11 October 2023: The...
Dear All,Along with more than...
Dear All (and with thanks to...
Dear All, Two items for...
Dear All, Three things today......
Dear All, Greetings from ECCMID...
Dear All,A key theme of...
Dear All,Following hard on the...
Dear All, A short one...
Dear All, We are swimming...
Antimicrobial resistance poses a catastrophic threat. If we don’t act now, any one of us could go into hospital in 20 years for minor surgery and die because of an ordinary infection that can’t be treated by antibiotics. And routine operations like hip replacements or organ transplants could be deadly because of the risk of infection.
AMR Fireside Chats
1/18 videos
1
Episode 17 w/ Ella Balasa and Rob Purdie of WHO Task Force of AMR Survivors - AMR Fireside Chat
38:24
2
Episode 16 w/ Ramanan Laxminarayan, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
32:59
3
Episode 15 w/ Mark Albrecht, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
43:55
4
Episode 14 w/ Lynn Silver - AMR Fireside Chat
56:23
5
Episode 13 w/ Kevin Outterson - AMR Fireside Chat
30:01
6
Episode 12 w/ Tina Joshi, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
34:22
7
Episode 11 w/ Martin Heidecker - AMR Fireside Chat
32:31
8
Episode 10 w/ Anna Govett - AMR Fireside Chat
14:54
9
Episode 9 w/ Fatema Rafiqi, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
34:10
10
Episode 8 w/ Ghada Zoubiane, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
35:04
11
Episode 7 w/ Trevor Lithgow, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
35:41
12
AMR Snapshots: Episode 2 - John Rex (Editor-In-Chief, AMR.Solutions)
26:25
13
Episode 6 w/ Maryn McKenna - AMR Fireside Chat
45:50
14
Episode 5 w/ Christine Årdal - AMR Fireside Chat
43:44
15
Episode 4 w/ Peter Beyer - AMR Fireside Chat
39:21
16
Episode 3 w/ Kevin Outterson - AMR Fireside Chat
11:45
17
Episode 2 w/ Henry Skinner, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
15:44
18
Episode 1 w/ Kevin Outterson - AMR Fireside Chat
52:56
Plazomicin EU marketing application is withdrawn: Near zero market value of newly approved antibacterials
Dear All (with thanks to Kevin Outterson for co-authoring this newsletter), Last week’s announcement of the AMR Action Fund was both exciting and sobering: $1b ...
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The 6 meanings of “Lack of Access” (UNSLAP)
Dear All, We often talk about the problem of lack of access to new antibiotics. In late 2021, for example, we explored data showing that multi-year ...
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Global survey of novel antibiotic reimbursement models / PASTEUR Act introduced to US House
Dear All (wonkish alert, but the details are fascinating … and with thanks to Kevin Outterson for co-authoring!), Two related items of note for today. ...
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Draft EMA antibacterial guidance: Analysis
Dear All: I wrote previously that EMA posted an extensively updated and consolidated version of their previously separate Guideline (CPMP/EWP/558/95 Rev.2) and Addendum (EMA/CHMP/351889/2013) documents into a single draft ...
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Non-traditional antibiotics: A pipeline review and an analysis of key development challenges
Dear All, Non-traditional alternatives to antibiotics have excited a lot of interest in the past few years but we’ve seen relatively few of these progress ...
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IDSA White Paper on developing narrow-spectrum antimicrobials + editorial by G. Drusano
Dear All (long note alert … there’s a lot of material below my signature): Just published today is an IDSA White Paper entitled “Developing Antimicrobial ...
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FDA workshop: Insights on inhaled antifungals and antibacterials
Dear All (wonkish alert … coffee up!), FDA held a workshop on 25 Sep 2020 on development of inhaled antifungal (AF) therapies with a focus ...
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Reimbursing for innovative antibiotics / Encouraging updates from the AMR conference
Dear All (with thanks to Kevin as the lead author on this note and also with a wonkish note alert … refresh your coffee and ...
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New mechanisms for antibiotic reimbursement in the United States: CMS’s IPPS FY2020 Final Rule
Dear All (and with thanks to Kevin Outterson for substantial help with this newsletter), On August 2, 2019, the US government agency that administrates Medicare & ...
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Novel Biology, Novel Utility, & the Illusion of Skill: What to develop? What to reward?
Dear All (wonk-ish note alert and also with particular thanks as always to Kevin Outterson for helping to refine this newsletter): Sparked at least in ...
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Language matters: CRE vs. CPE; SDD vs. I; and MDR, XDR, PDR, UDR vs. DTR
Note: See also these related newsletters: 13 Jan 2019 (link) on DTR as part of the language of resistance and 7 June 2020 (link) on ...
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FDA AMDAC – Developing Single-Pathogen agents for P. aeruginosa and A. baumannii
Dear All (and with apologies … long note alert!): Yesterday’s AMDAC was very productive. For reference, all the materials are here and a reasonably detailed set of ...
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The thoughtless person playing with penicillin treatment is morally responsible for the death of the man who succumbs to infection with the penicillin-resistant organism.
The bipartisan PASTEUR Act is the strongest bill ever written to strengthen antibiotic development and use. It will fix our market failures, expand the pipeline for next generation antibiotics, and save lives. We can’t sit on our hands as this public health crisis arrives – we have to act now.
Summaries
Notes: Newsflash ... BARDA have...
Aside: If you've enjoyed the...
See also This related newsletter:...
Dear All (and with thanks...
Dear All (Wonkish alert! Coffee-up!),Today...