ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE SOLUTIONS
WITH DR. JOHN H. REX
Latest Newsletters
Dear All (and with thanks to Lucy Naga for being the lead author on this economic-focused newsletter),Antimicrobials are the quiet safety net of modern medicine. They underpin everything from routine infections to cancer treatment and surgery. They also support animal health and food production. Antimicrobial Effectiveness (AME, the ability of these medicines to remain efficacious and accessible for appropriate use) is a foundational component of the systems that sustain modern societies.Despite this central role, AME is rarely treated as a strategic economic asset -- and it was this economic perspective on antibiotics that was the starting point for the 6 Nov 2025 Panmure House Dialogues on Market Solutions for Antimicrobial Effectiveness. This dialogue took place at Panmure House, the final home of the moral philosopher and economist Adam Smith. Today, Panmure House serves as a center for economic and social research and debate, exploring contemporary challenges through the lens of Smith’s enduring ideas.AMR is exactly the kind of problem Smith would have cared deeply about. While he championed the power of markets, he argued that they require well-designed institutions and aligned incentives to function in the public interest. For a thinker concerned with how nations flourish, the erosion of such...
Dear All (a wonkish guide...
Latest Government Action
Dear All,I'm delighted to be able to say that PASTEUR 2026 was (re)introduced into the US Congress this week! It's an improved version relative to the version introduced into the prior 3 sessions of the US Congress (see below for discussion of that), so I think we can safely call it "PASTEUR v2.0" as well as by its more official name of PASTEUR 2026. Here are the links you need:PASTEUR 2026 (v2.0)On congress.gov, it is "H.R.7352 - To amend the Public Health Service Act to establish a program to develop innovative antimicrobial drugs targeting the most challenging pathogens and most threatening infections, and for other purposes."But, you can't (yet) download from congress.gov ... instead, use this text (.pdf) of the newly introduced versionA section-by-section analysis of the ActPress releases and commentaryOne-pager about the newly introduced version of PASTEURPress release by the five house representatives who are sponsoring the billAnd excitingly, six additional representatives have joined the bill as of today (to follow this, look at the "Date Cosponsored" column on that webpage)Press releases from IDSA and BIOBackground and context on the ideas behind PASTEUR as well as its potential value16 June 2021 newsletter ("PASTEUR Act re-introduced and levels up antimicrobial economics for strong innovation!"). This newsletter gives a...
Dear All,There are more details...
Dear All (and with thanks...
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...
R&D Insight
Dear All,Three things briefly this...
4 Mar 2020 update: I...
Dear All: “Good decisions come...
Dear All,As in previous years ...
Addendum: This is the second...
Dear All: Three things today...
Heads-up ... numerous changes in...
Note: For those of you...
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
1/19 videos
1
Episode 18 w/Robin Hiley- Fireside Chat
19:48
2
Episode 17 w/ Ella Balasa and Rob Purdie of WHO Task Force of AMR Survivors - AMR Fireside Chat
38:24
3
Episode 16 w/ Ramanan Laxminarayan, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
32:59
4
Episode 15 w/ Mark Albrecht, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
43:55
5
Episode 14 w/ Lynn Silver - AMR Fireside Chat
56:23
6
Episode 13 w/ Kevin Outterson - AMR Fireside Chat
30:01
7
Episode 12 w/ Tina Joshi, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
34:22
8
Episode 11 w/ Martin Heidecker - AMR Fireside Chat
32:31
9
Episode 10 w/ Anna Govett - AMR Fireside Chat
14:54
10
Episode 9 w/ Fatema Rafiqi, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
34:10
11
Episode 8 w/ Ghada Zoubiane, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
35:04
12
Episode 7 w/ Trevor Lithgow, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
35:41
13
AMR Snapshots: Episode 2 - John Rex (Editor-In-Chief, AMR.Solutions)
26:25
14
Episode 6 w/ Maryn McKenna - AMR Fireside Chat
45:50
15
Episode 5 w/ Christine Årdal - AMR Fireside Chat
43:44
16
Episode 4 w/ Peter Beyer - AMR Fireside Chat
39:21
17
Episode 3 w/ Kevin Outterson - AMR Fireside Chat
11:45
18
Episode 2 w/ Henry Skinner, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
15:44
19
Episode 1 w/ Kevin Outterson - AMR Fireside Chat
52:56
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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UK to expand NHS Subscription Pilot! Consultation Period launches
Dear All (and with thanks to Kevin for co-authoring), The UK NHS England Pilot is known to us all as the first real attempt at an antibiotic ...
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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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COVID-19 and the Long-Term Trajectory of AMR Efforts: Wellcome Trust Deep Dive
Dear All (Wonkish alert! Coffee-up!), Today we have something special: A deep-dive into the future trajectory of AMR-related work developed by Wellcome Trust. The newly ...
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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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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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Scary, Scarier, Scariest (Part 2): What can YOU do about it?
Long note alert— apologies! Get a cup of coffee and settle in… Dear All: My 22 Apr 2019 note entitled Scary, Scarier, Scariest: Achaogen / FT ...
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FDA: Early endpoints and late endpoints suggest a path to global regulatory convergence (Bart et al.)
Dear All (wonkish note alert … top-up your coffee and settle in!), Today we have a tour of a recent paper in Clinical Infectious Diseases ...
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Mirror Bacteria: An AMR threat of unprecedented magnitude
Dear All (wonkish but stick with it … I’m going to try very hard to de-wonk it; addendum: see also the follow-up newsletters, most recently ...
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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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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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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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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...