Dear All: Great stuff to read, watch, and share!
First, there is an excellent new BBC documentary entitled The Truth About Antibiotics. In it, Angela Rippon provides a thorough tour at the non-scientist level of the origins of antibiotics, the devastating consequences of not having an effective choice, the role of diagnostics, and the challenges of R&D. Along the way, we are treated to some great storytelling: the Kishony lab’s visual of how resistance evolves, a relay race showing the lag in antibiotic discovery, and much more. Featuring Dame Sally Davies, we also have a very clear discussion of the financial challenge and the need for delinked alternatives. Highly recommended for sharing far & wide.
Second, IDSA has published an update on its 10 x ’20 series. Entitled “The Infectious Diseases Society of America’s 10 × ’20 Initiative (Ten New Systemic Antibacterial Agents FDA-approved by 2020): Is 20 × ’20 a Possibility?”, I don’t think you’ll be surprised by their core conclusions … we may need to start calling this “20 x ’20 … but homeless!”:
- “Although our survey demonstrates progress in development of new antibacterial drugs that target infections caused by resistant bacterial pathogens, the majority of recently approved agents have been modifications of existing chemical classes of antibiotics, rather than new chemical classes.
- “Furthermore, larger pharmaceutical companies continue to abandon the field, and smaller companies face financial difficulties as a consequence.
- “Without increased regulatory, governmental, industry, and scientific support and collaboration, durable solutions to the clinical, regulatory and economic problems posed by bacterial multidrug resistance will not be found.
Finally, there’s a really good interview on Pew’s website with Rick Bright, director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). The interview surveys of all of the ongoing work in this area and in particular offers a good summary of the what and why of the US Government’s preparedness efforts.
As always, it is so encouraging to me to see so much concerted effort to tell the story. Spreading the word is a critical part of making progress versus AMR. Please share!
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 Feb 2019 (London): Opportunity to comment in person on the IACG draft recommendations. See this tweet for more details.
- [NEW] 21 Feb 2019 (everywhere, 17:00-18:30 CET): GARDP-sponsored webinar entitled “NIAID Resources to Facilitate Discovery & Development of Anti-Infectives.” Register here.
- 5-6 Mar 2019 (Washington): NIAID-sponsored workshop: Vaccine strategies for endemic fungal pathogens. Register here.
- 14-15 Mar 2019 (Berlin): BEAM-, Novo REPAIR-, CARB-X-, 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).
- 18 Mar 2019 (everywhere): Deadline for responding to the WHO call for data on preclinical antibiotic programs. 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.
- 28 Mar 2019 (everywhere, 4-5.30p GMT): GARDP-sponsored webinar entitled “Clinical development for non-developers Part 3: Antibacterial Drug Enhancer Combinations and Non-traditional Products.” Register here.
- 11-12 Apr 2019 (Amsterdam): ESGAP–SWAB (European Study Group for Antibiotic Policies – Stichting Werkgroep Antibioticabeleid) Technical Workshop on measuring quantity and quality of antimicrobial use. 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
- 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 2019 (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.
