Dear All:
I’ve written before about BARDA’s DRIVe initiative (Division of Research Innovation and Ventures, launched June 2018) that seeks to develop countermeasures for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats, as well as for pandemic influenza and emerging infectious diseases.
As a core part of this work, DRIVe Ventures seeks to link innovators and investors through creation of a VC-like fund. BARDA has now posted an RFI (Request for Information) that seeks to identify and learn about groups that would be capable of managing such an investment fund for them.
In their own words: “BARDA DRIVe wants to hear from the venture capital community, including, but not limited to, venture capital firms, corporate venture capital, impact venture capital funds, and non-profit strategic investors with experience identifying promising innovative products and technologies.”
It’s very interesting to see the evolution of this project. If you or your team think you might be positioned to manage such a project, a 10-page overview of your capabilities is due by March 4, 2019, 5:00pm ET. The RFI makes it clear that funding is not happening at this point, but becoming visible would seem important for the next steps in the process.
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: http://amr.solutions/blog/
Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:
- 29 Jan 2018 (REVIVE webinar): “Clinical development for non-developers Part 3: Antibacterial Drug Enhancer Combinations and Non-traditional Products.” Register 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-, Novo REPAIR-, DZIF-, ND4BB-ENABLE-sponsored (among a long list!) Berlin Conference on Novel Antimicrobials and AMR Diagnostics. Details here. Poster submissions are being accepted through 9 Jan (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
- 16-18 Apr 2019 (Utrecht): ICOHAR, International Conference on One Health Antimicrobial Resistance. Organized by the ESCMID Study Group for Veterinary Microbiology (ESGVM).
- 24-26 Apr 2019 (Boston): Annual SHEA (Soc. for Hospital Epidemiology of America) Spring meeting
- 6-11 May 2019 (Ljubljana, Slovenia): 37th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases (ESPID). Details here.
- 3-6 Jun 2019 (Philadelphia): Annual BIO meeting
- [NEW] 10-11 June 2019 (Research Triangle Park, NC): AMR Action Summit on R&D and Commercialization. Sponsors include the British-American Business Council, the UK Gov’t, CARB-X, the NC Biotechnology Center, and others. Details here.
- 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.
