Dear All:
About two years ago, Lord Jim O’Neill led the UK AMR review to its 7th and final report and proposed these 10 steps as the fundamental basis for controlling AMR:
- A massive global public awareness campaign
- Improve hygiene and prevent the spread of infection
- Reduce unnecessary use of antimicrobials in agriculture and their dissemination into the environment
- Improve global surveillance of drug resistance and antimicrobial consumption in humans and animals
- Promote new, rapid diagnostics to cut unnecessary use of antibiotics
- Promote development and use of vaccines and alternatives
- Improve the numbers, pay and recognition of people working in infectious disease
- Establish a Global Innovation Fund for early-stage and non-commercial research
- Better incentives to promote investment for new drugs and improving existing ones
- Build a global coalition for real action – via the G20 and the UN
While there is certainly a lot more to be done (especially on incentives!), there has also been some good progress and the Dec 2018 issue of Microbiologist (the journal of SfAM, the Society for Applied Microbiology) contains a series of 10 articles discussing each of the ten action points (full disclosure — I helped write the article on #10).
There is a lot to explore here, but I’ll particularly note for this audience Kevin Outterson’s paper on step #8 and his summary on page 40 of the EUR 1.8b (yes, “b” as in billion) that will go into the AMR space over the (approximately) 10-year period 2012-2023 from a combination of government and philanthropic sources. As Kevin notes, “The preclinical funding landscape is without a doubt a ray of hope in an otherwise difficult field.”
And let me also note in relation to Item #10 that we continue to see at least some progress with national initiatives. Specifically, the declaration from the recent G20 meeting in Buenos Aires notes the following in its point #15:
- “We commend the progress made by the international community in developing and implementing National and Regional Action Plans on Anti-Microbial Resistance (AMR) based on One-Health approach.
- We recognize the need for further multi-sectoral action to reduce the spread of AMR, as it is increasingly becoming a global responsibility.
- We note the work done by the Global AMR R&D Hub and, drawing on this, we look forward to further examining practical market incentives.”
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step! Keep walking!
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/
Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:
- 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. Register here.
- 17 Dec 2018 (online): Webinar on TDM of antibiotics, sponsored by the journal Clinical Mass Spectroscopy.
- 13 Dec 2018 (online): CDD webinar entitled “New Strategies in Antibiotic Drug Development.” Register here.
- 15 Jan 2018 (London): BSAC’s Antimicrobial Chemotherapy Conference 2019: “An ABC for everyone involved in developing new antimicrobials.” Details here.
- 4-5 Feb 2019 (London): Hamied Foundation UK-India Antimicrobial Resistance Meeting 2019. This is a 2-day meeting focused on building research links between the UK and India with the specific aim of jointly addressing the challenge of AMR. Register here.
- 14-15 Mar 2019 (Berlin): BEAM-, CARB-X-, and ND4BB-ENABLE-sponsored Berlin Conference on Novel Antimicrobials and AMR Diagnostics. Details here.
- 21-22 Mar 2019 (Birmingham, UK): BSAC Spring Conference.
- 26 Mar 2019 (London, UK): Sponsored by The Economist, a 1-day symposium entitled “Antimicrobial Resistance: Preventing an antibiotic apocalypse.” Register here.
- 13-16 Apr 2019 (Amsterdam): Annual ECCMID meeting.
- 24-26 Apr 2019 (Boston). Annual SHEA (Soc. for Hospital Epidemiology of America) Spring meeting
- 3-6 Jun 2019 (Philadelphia): Annual BIO meeting
- 20-24 June 2019 (San Francisco): Annual ASM Microbe meeting.
- [Mark your calendar now!] 3-6 Sep 2019 (Boston). Annual ASM-ESCMID Conference on Antibiotic Development. The Bootcamp series will continue on 3 Sep with the main meeting on 4-6 Sep. Mark your calendar now and check back here for details.
- 6-8 Sep 2019 (Bilbao, Spain): 5th ESCMID conference on Vaccines. Check back here for details.
- 2-6 Oct 2018 (Washington, DC): IDSA’s annual IDWeek meeting.
- 19-27 Oct 2019 (Annecy, France): International Course on Antibiotics and Resistance (ICARe) – A soup-to-nuts intensive residential training program on all things AMR, especially R&D for new antibiotics. See this link for details.
