Dear All: Two things today.
First, Maryn McKenna has provided the community with an excellent brief perspective on the incentive problem. Entitlted “Antibiotics May Soon Become Useless. Now What?” and published in Wired, she uses the recent approval of omadacycline (Nuzyra) as a springboard to discuss the paradox of antibiotics. She quite logically extends the idea of antibiotics as fire extinguishers to antibiotics as infrastructure.
Stated differently, you can see antibiotics as being akin to roads in that they enable us to get from one place (illness) to another (health). I think this is a great alternative analogy that might be useful in some conversations. Thank you, Maryn!
Second, I previously wrote about the 19-20 Nov 2018 Call to Action on Antimicrobial Resistance being held in Accra, Ghana.
Hosted by the governments of Ghana, Thailand, and the UK in collaboration with the World Bank, UN Foundation, and Wellcome Trust, the event will focus on practical steps towards the implementation of national action plans and raising the pace of the global response to AMR through high level political dialogue and multi-sectoral collaboration.
The event has a particular focus on low- and middle-income countries and will showcase examples of pioneering initiatives to inspire national and global policy makers when considering national action plan implementation and provide the forum for One Health, multi-sectoral discussions around the barriers to implementation and collaborative responses.
In addition, the event will provide a key opportunity for stakeholders to directly engage with the IACG-AMR (Interagency Coordination Group on AMR) as they start to refine their recommendations to the United Nations Secretary General, due to be delivered next spring.
You can find the latest agenda here, and if you are interested in attending, you can contact AMRCalltoAction@wellcome.ac.uk.
All best wishes, –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/
Opportunities of interest for the AMR community
- 24 Oct 2018 deadline: IMI AMR Accelerator programme Pillar A within IMI Call 15: Capability-building network to manage the whole accelerator and strengthen AMR science. This is a two-stage call, with letter of intent from applicants expected on 24 Oct 2018.
- 24 Oct 2018 deadline: IMI AMR Accelerator programme Pillar B: Tuberculosis drug development network within IMI Call 15: Tuberculosis drug development network to collaboratively progress TB compounds and validate new tools for TB drug development. This is a two-stage call, with letter of intent from applicants expected on 24 Oct 2018.
- 24 Oct 2018 deadline: IMI Call 16: A series of individual programs where a single EFPIA partner works with a consortium to progress compounds for for TB, non-tuberculous mycobacteria, and Gram-negatives. This is a one-stage call, with full proposal from the EFPIA and applicant consortium expected on 24 Oct 2018.
Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:
- 23 Oct 2018 (online webinar): Introduction to Pew’s SPARK platform (Shared Platform for Antibiotic Research and Knowledge)
- 23 Oct 2018 (New York City): New York Academy of Sciences workshop entitled “New Therapeutic Strategies to Combat Antibacterial Resistance“
- 26 Oct 2018 (London): EMA information day for SMEs: “Regulatory toolbox for medicines and combined devices developers”. Here is the current agenda. Webcast will be available. More details from sme@ema.europa.eu.
- [DATE CORRECTED] 29-30 Oct 2018 (Washington): BARDA Industry Days, a 2-day conference on countermeasure development for the US Government
- 7-9 Nov 2018 (Seville, Spain): Better Methods for Clinical Studies in Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology: A Hands-on Workshop
- 8 Nov 2018 (Alderley Park, UK): Bionow’s 1-day Bioinfect conference
- 12-18 Nov 2018 (everywhere): WHO (and US CDC) Antibiotic Awareness Week. Events now being planned … see the WHO and CDC links for ideas, fact sheets, and graphical materials.
- 12-13 Nov 2018 (London): Joint SCI– and Royal Society of Chemistry-sponsored 2nd annual Symposium on Antimicrobial Discovery. Online materials here.
- 13 Nov 2018 (London): All-Parties Parliamentary Working Group on AMR meeting. Online materials here.
- 16 Nov 2018 (Berlin): Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition is organizing a conference on life sciences and innovation. Online materials here.
- [NEW] 19-20 Nov 2018 (Accra, Ghana): Call to Action on Antimicrobial Resistance. Latest agenda here. To attend, contact AMRCalltoAction@wellcome.ac.uk.
- 21 Nov 2018 (London): NICE- & APBI-sponsored masterclass: “Using non-randomised data to estimate treatment effects in NICE submissions”. Details here.
- 29-30 Nov 2018 (Birmingham, UK): BSAC (British Society Antimicrobial Chemotherapy): Antibiotic Resistance Mechanisms Workshop for Researchers
- 7 Dec 2018 (Boston, MA): BAARN, Boston Area Antimicrobial Resistance Network 2018 symposium, 8:30am to 7pm at The Starr Center (185 Cambridge Street, Boston, MA). This is an excellent networking opportunity, especially for those based in the Boston area. Details not yet online.
- 15 Jan 2018 (London): BSAC’s Antimicrobial Chemotherapy Conference 2019: “An ABC for everyone involved in developing new antimicrobials.” Details here.
- 14-15 Mar 2019 (Berlin): BEAM– and ND4BB-ENABLE-sponsored Berlin Conference on Novel Antimicrobials and AMR Diagnostics. Details here.
- 21-22 Mar 2019 (Birmingham, UK): BSAC Spring Conference.
