Dear All:
First, the methods behind the WHO Priority Pathogens List (PPL, released on 25 Feb 2017) have now been published by Tacconelli et al. in Lancet Infectious Diseases along with an editorial by Tillottson. As further context while you review these excellent papers, you might also find it helpful to have to hand this slide deck comparing the WHO PPL, the 2013 CDC threat list, and the 2008-9 ESKAPE pathogen list. (11 Feb 2020 addendum: I have updated that deck to also show the CDC 2019 threat list. Get the new deck here, go here for a newsletter about CDC’s update, and go here for a discussion of the problem of setting antibiotic R&D priorities.)
You should read the papers yourself, but the quick summary is that the authors used multicriteria decision analysis across 10 axes (mortality, health-care burden, community burden, prevalence of resistance, 10-year trend of resistance, transmissibility, preventability in the community setting, preventability in the health-care setting, treatability, and pipeline) to prioritize the pathogens. Very importantly, they obtained input from 70 experts spanning all 6 WHO regions, thus ensuring a broad view on global needs.
Second, there has been a lot of action underway to address the gaps identified by the WHO PPL and the related WHO pipeline review from this past summer. I am seeing significant amounts of company-level activity and one measure of this is that CARB-X now lists 22 projects in its portfolio page. As an additional perspective on recent actions at the Industry level, I’ve learned that the AMR Industry Alliance will release its first Global Progress report on 18 Jan 2018 in Geneva. You can register to attend that meeting via this link. This is all very exciting to see!
In closing, all best wishes for the holidays and thank you for being one of the just over 1,000 subscribers to this newsletter! I’ve enjoyed writing these occasional updates and I’ve also appreciated all the helpful comments and tips that I’ve received.
Ho, ho, ho! –jr
John H. Rex, MD | Chief Medical Officer, F2G Ltd. | Expert-in-Residence, Wellcome Trust. Follow me on Twitter: @JohnRex_NewAbx. See past newsletters and subscribe for the future: https://13.43.35.2/blog/
Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:
- 11 Jan 2018 (Washington): FDA AMDAC on Aradigm’s inhaled ciprofloxaxcin for non-CF bronchiectasis
- [NEW] 18 Jan 2018 (Geneva): Release of the First Annual Progress Report in support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 3 in particular) by the AMR Industry Alliance
- 12-14 Feb 2018 (Baltimore): ASM Biothreats Conference
- 28 Feb 2018 (Brussels): Deadline for responses to IMI2 Call 13 (Topic 3) on AMR diagnostics
- 11-16 Mar 2018 (Ventura Beach): Gordon Research Conference on Antibacterial Discovery
- 21-24 Apr 2018 (Madrid): ECCMID
- 7-11 Jun 2018 (Atlanta): ASM Microbe
- 22-27 Jul 2018 (Bryant University, Smithfield, RI): Gordon Research Conference on Drug Resistance for Cancer, Infectious Disease and Agriculture
- 4-7 Sep 2018 ESCMID-ASM Conference (#3) on Drug Development for AMR (Lisbon, Portugal) (initial flyer)
- 6-14 Oct 2018 International Course on Antibiotics and Resistance (ICARe, Les Pensières, Annecy, France) (link to 2017 program — details pending for 2018)
