ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE SOLUTIONS
WITH DR. JOHN H. REX
Latest Newsletters
Dear All (and with thanks to Damiano for co-authoring), We have exciting news from the G7 Health Ministers’ Meeting, which was held in person in Ancona on 9-11 October 2024, and the accompanying G7 Joint Finance and Health Ministers’ Meeting, which took place in a hybrid format on 10 October 2024. At the press conference closing both ministerial events, the Italian Minister of Health, Orazio Schillaci, made two announcements that mark a major step forward in global coordination to PUSH and PULL antibacterial R&D! PUSH: Italy funds CARB-XItaly will contribute USD 21 million to CARB-X over the next three years.This funding will enhance...
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.
Latest Government Action
This is the fifth of a 5-part newsletter series. There is an initial 27 Sep 2023 newsletter introducing the EPA concept note, a second (28 Sep 2023) newsletter that expands on the EPA concept note, a third (12 Jan 2024) newsletter about ending the use of streptomycin spray on citrus crops, and a 4th newsletter (27 Jan 2024) containing some additional resources. Dear All, Excitingly, the US EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has now finalized a framework for reviewing the AMR (resistance) risks of antibacterial and antifungal pesticides. Here's a summary to get you started: When used in crop or animal agriculture, antibacterials and antifungals fall under the regulation for pesticides provided by FIFRA (the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act). Yes, I know that idea sounds odd ... pesticides? Well, it's a regulatory term. See the 27 Sep 2023 AMR.Solutions newsletter if you want to go deeper on this. FIFRA requires that use of the pesticide according to label specifications will not generally cause "unreasonable adverse effects on the environment" which are in turn defined to mean “(1) any unreasonable risk to man or the environment, taking into account the economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits of the use of any pesticide, or "(2) a human dietary risk from residues that result from a use of...
Dear All, Greetings from Porto...
Dear All,During the GLG AMR...
Dear All,Well, ECCMID 2024 (Barcelona)...
Dear All (moderately wonkish, so...
R&D Insight
Dear All: FDA today posted...
Dear All,I learned today from...
Dear All: The new Novo...
Dear All (and note the...
Dear All,CARB-X have opened their...
Dear All: Are you doing...
Dear All: This is your...
Dear All (and with thanks...
Dear All,FDA, NIAID and CDC...
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
1/17 videos
1
Episode 16 w/ Ramanan Laxminarayan, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
32:59
2
Episode 15 w/ Mark Albrecht, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
43:55
3
Episode 14 w/ Lynn Silver - AMR Fireside Chat
56:23
4
Episode 13 w/ Kevin Outterson - AMR Fireside Chat
30:01
5
Episode 12 w/ Tina Joshi, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
34:22
6
Episode 11 w/ Martin Heidecker - AMR Fireside Chat
32:31
7
Episode 10 w/ Anna Govett - AMR Fireside Chat
14:54
8
Episode 9 w/ Fatema Rafiqi, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
34:10
9
Episode 8 w/ Ghada Zoubiane, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
35:04
10
Episode 7 w/ Trevor Lithgow, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
35:41
11
AMR Snapshots: Episode 2 - John Rex (Editor-In-Chief, AMR.Solutions)
26:25
12
Episode 6 w/ Maryn McKenna - AMR Fireside Chat
45:50
13
Episode 5 w/ Christine Årdal - AMR Fireside Chat
43:44
14
Episode 4 w/ Peter Beyer - AMR Fireside Chat
39:21
15
Episode 3 w/ Kevin Outterson - AMR Fireside Chat
11:45
16
Episode 2 w/ Henry Skinner, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
15:44
17
Episode 1 w/ Kevin Outterson - AMR Fireside Chat
52:56
Summaries
Dear All (wonkish alert ... but definitely worth the effort! Refill your coffee!),Ramanan Laxminarayan and about 40 colleagues from around the world have just published in the Lancet a GLORIOUS collection of papers on the theme of "Sustainable Access to Effective Antibiotics."There are six papers in total for you to digest: An Executive Summary, four papers with analysis and data, and then a commentary. Here are the links you need along with very brief comments (and see below my signature for a more extended tour of the papers): The overview webpage for the series: "Sustainable Access to Effective Antibiotics." Okeke et al., Executive Summary: Lancet Series on Sustainable Access to Effective Antibiotics Okeke et al., Sustainable Access to Antibiotics 1: The scope of the antimicrobial resistance challenge Key message: (bacterial) AMR is a major barrier to achieving the UN SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) Lewnard et al., Sustainable Access to Antibiotics 2: Burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance in low-income and middle-income countries avertible by existing interventions: an evidence review and modelling analysis Key messages: WASH, vaccines, and better IPC can avert some (but not all) of AMR-related burden Significantly, a 10% reduction in mortality is within reach with these existing tools! Laxminarayan et al., Sustainable Access to Antibiotics 3: Expanding antibiotic, vaccine, and diagnostics development and...
Notes: Newsflash ... BARDA have...
Aside: If you've enjoyed the...
Dear All,See also this related...
Dear All (and with thanks...
Dear All (Wonkish alert! Coffee-up!),Today...
Dear All, Released on 21 Oct...
Modeling the value of an effective antibiotic — Megiddo et al.
Dear All: I have previously written about the challenge of applying health technology assessment (HTA) to estimate the monetary value of an effective antibiotic: To my knowledge,
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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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Chemical vs. drugs (Part 2): How do you discriminate? / More on halicin
This newsletter is part of a series — here are the links to Part 1, (this one is Part 2), Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5. Also relevant
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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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FDA analysis of 40-years of antibacterial development: Dheman et al.
Dear All (and with thanks to Kevin Outterson for co-authoring this newsletter), Just out in CID is a paper in which FDA analyzes trends in
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New pipeline analysis: Cancer projects were funded 17x more than antibacterials during 2011-2020
Dear All (wonkish alert: coffee up, settle in, and read the reports!), As you will recall, WHO’s most current pipeline review found that globally we
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Developing antibiotics for children: There are no easy answers
Aside: If you’ve enjoyed the prior discussions of movies to inspire antibiotic R&D and very apropos given the theme of today’s newsletter, please check out the
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FDA Workshop: Animal models in support of narrow-spectrum agents for A. baumannii and P. aeruginosa
Dear All: FDA today hosted their eagerly awaited workshop on animal models in support of narrow-spectrum agents for A. baumannii (Abau) and P. aeruginosa (Pae). It was a really
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News from Davos 2020: Some positive signs, but overall a fragile antibiotic market at a tipping point
Dear All (and heads-up for a rather lengthy and wonkish note … settle in for the details), Last week saw substantial AMR-related news released in
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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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How hard (and how) to Pull? Net value of Pull via a Transferrable Exclusivity Extension (TEE)
Dear All (wonkish alert … get your coffee!), EFPIA have recently released a report estimating the value of a Transferable Exclusivity Extension (TEE, report, press
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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
Read More →
AMR TL;DR
1/5 videos
1
Tragedy Of The (Antibiotic) Commons: How economists (and Finance Ministers) think…
34:03
2
Ex-US new antibiotic access: Multi-year delays, even in Europe! - TL;DR
17:03
3
Developing Antibiotics For Children: There Are No Easy Answers - TL;DR
05:15
4
G7 Finance Ministers Call For Pull; US-Specific Text Cites PASTEUR And A PASTEUR Backup Plan - TL;DR
04:50
5
Updated Access To Medicine Foundation AMR Benchmark! Signs Of Progress But Access Lags - TL;DR
12:32
Have you used a fire extinguisher today? Are you using one now?
Even when there isn’t a fire, you’re using a fire extinguisher. You bought it, you stored it, and you know it will work.
Antibiotics are to infections as fire extinguishers are to fires.
Fire fighters know their tools will put out the biggest of flames but the same cannot be said for physicians.
Antibiotics provide a safety net for all of health care. This safety net is beginning to fall apart because of issues like superbugs, failing agent development pipelines, and problematic economic models.
The fire department isn't paid per fire.
You don't buy a fire extinguisher as the fire is breaking out.
It's time to change how we view the #FireExtinguishersOfMedicine.
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.
I did not invent penicillin. Nature did that. I only discovered it by accident.