Dear All,
On the heels of yesterday’s (i) patient-focused meeting at the Capitol yesterday where 5 Members of Congress spoke in person (video, press release) in support of passage of the PASTEUR Act and (ii) strong shout-out to PASTEUR by Congressman Mike Doyle during the Energy and Commerce Committee markup session, CARB-X today announced commitments of up to $370m to support it for another 10 years! Building on the pattern of funding and support via in-kind services that launched CARB-X in 2016, the 3 founding supporters have renewed their commitments:
- Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) within the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), will provide US$20 million initially and up to US$300 million over 10 years to support the existing portfolio and launch new funding rounds.
- As an aside, HHS released its impressive Year 5 Progress report for the US National Action Plan for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria (CARB) on 13 May; as you would expect, CARB-X is featured prominently!
- Wellcome, a global charitable foundation, will provide up to US$70 million over three years as part of its continued commitment to address the escalating threat of drug-resistant infections.
- U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in HHS, will provide support in the form of in-kind services through access to a suite of preclinical services for product development. Close readers of the newsletter will recall the recent Broad Area Announcements for preclinical support of diagnostics and biopharmaceutical products, and these are the vehicles providing that in-kind support.
This funding builds on ongoing support from other CARB-X funders and partners that include the U.K. and German governments (the Global AMR Innovation Fund and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research), and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Their original agreements end in 2022 and 2023 and are not yet up for renewal.
CARB-X has resulted in 92 innovative products around the world by deploying >$360M since its creation in 2016. Work to date has result in 11 products reaching First-in-Human (Phase 1) studies and 2 diagnostics achieving market approval. To continue at this pace, CARB-X will need additional funds from other governments and charities … and I look forward to seeing others funders step up to this challenge.
As you know, we also need Pull incentives to ensure that newly created products can / will stay on the market. To that end, it was also exciting to see the release yesterday by the G20 Health & Development Partnership of an open letter to the G7/G20 Health Ministers in advance of the upcoming (22-28 May 2022) 75th World Health Assembly. Among other calls to action, the letter says: “Permanent pull incentives should be adopted, either individually or in regional groups, to attract funding for more antimicrobial R&D. Effective pull incentives include:
- “Subscription models such as the proposed Pasteur Act in the USA and the UK pilot models;
- “A transferable exclusivity voucher;
- “Advanced purchasing models and/or pooled procurement for LMICs.”
Woot, woot … it’s been exciting few days! As you know, this is a critical time in our work as at least 1.27 million deaths were directly attributable to AMR in 2019! Creating new, innovative antibiotics takes years of effort and the long-term vision behind these funds is extraordinary! MANY thanks to BARDA, NIAID, Wellcome, and all the other funders for their ongoing commitment … and I look forward to hearing that CARB-X has announced its next funding calls!
Antibiotics are the #FireExtinguishersOfMedicine! #AMRSOS!
All best wishes, –jr
John H. Rex, MD | Chief Medical Officer, F2G Ltd. | Operating Partner, Advent Life Sciences. Follow me on Twitter: @JohnRex_NewAbx. See past newsletters and subscribe for the future: https://amr.solutions/blog/. All opinions are my own.
Current funding opportunities (most current list is here)
- The AMR Industry Alliance has announced their 2022 Stewardship Prize! The program offers 10,000 CHF to recognize established, innovative approaches to AMR stewardship in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The 2021 prize went to the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI) in Kampala, Uganda for their best practices in diagnostic stewardship and for their patient awareness campaigns dedicated to decreasing inappropriate use of antibiotics in their specialist HIV clinic in Kampala. Applications for the 2022 prize are due August 31, 2022. Thinking in terms of stewardship, WHO have recently released a pair of courses through the OpenWHO platform:
- Course 1 provides training on the WHO Policy Guidance on Integrated Antimicrobial Stewardship Activities
- Course 2 focuses on the WHO practical toolkit for antimicrobial stewardship programmes in health-care facilities in low- and middle-income countries
- The online training courses can be found on the dedicated channel: https://openwho.org/channels/amr
- The AMR Action Fund is now open to proposals for funding of Phase 2 / Phase 3 antibacterial therapeutics. Per its charter, the fund prioritizes investment in treatments that address a pathogen prioritized by the WHO, the CDC and/or other public health entities that: (i) are novel (e.g., absence of known cross-resistance, novel targets, new chemical classes, or new mechanisms of action); and/or (ii) have significant differentiated clinical utility (e.g., differentiated innovation that provides clinical value versus standard of care to prescribers and patients, such as safety/tolerability, oral formulation, different spectrum of activity); and (iii) reduce patient mortality. It is also expected that such agents would have the potential to strongly address the likely requirements for delinked Pull incentives such as the UK (NHS England) subscription pilot and the PASTEUR Act in the US. Submit queries to contact@amractionfund.com.
- INCATE (Incubator for Antibacterial Therapies in Europe) is a newly launched early-stage funding vehicle. Details are still coming into focus, but per comments on 25 Aug 2021 at the BIOCOM conference, their goal is to support ~4 companies per year with about $250k/company. Contact details are on their website (https://www.incate.net/).
- New funding rounds from CARB-X are expected soon now that funding for the next 10 years has been announced!
- It’s not a funder, but AiCuris’ AiCubator offers incubator support to very early stage projects. Read more about it here.
- The Global AMR R&D Hub’s dynamic dashboard (link) summarizes the global clinical development pipeline, incentives for AMR R&D, and investors/investments in AMR R&D.
- In addition to the lists provided by the Global AMR R&D Hub, you might also be interested in my most current lists of R&D incentives (link) and priority pathogens (link).
Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community (most current list is here):
- [Not to be missed!] 8 Dec 2021: “The New Winds Pushing and Pulling Antibacterial Development.” This FABULOUS program featured talks from the UK team behind the NHS “Netflix” pilot, Kevin Outterson’s recently released report documenting the need for global Pull incentives to have a value of $2.2 – 4.8b, and speakers covering PASTEUR and work in the EU on pull incentives. The video is here — please make time to listen to this program!
- [Required reading!] The stunning 4 Feb 2022 webinar for the GRAM report (Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance “1.27 million deaths per year are directly attributable to AMR”) is now available for replay. #AMRSOS!
- 24 May 2022 (virtual, 1-2p East Coast), The Pew Charitable Trust is sponsoring an event with The Hill entitled “Antibiotic Resistance: A Looming Public Health Crisis.” Speakers will include US Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) and US Representative Drew Ferguson (R-GA) as well as a patient survivor, IDSA, and CARB-X. Go here for details!
- 31 May 2022 (virtual, 15:00-18:00, Finland): “Antibiotics for Life”, a webinar sponsored by TGAR (The Global Antibiotics Resistance Foundation) that will discuss stewardship and innovation from a Nordic perspective. Go here to register.
- 3 Jun 2022 (virtual, 9a-5p ET): FDA-sponsored workshop entitled “Drugs for the Treatment of Uncomplicated Urinary Tract Infections (UTI)” that will focus on “nonclinical and clinical considerations regarding antimicrobial drug development for uncomplicated UTI.” Go here for more details and to register.
- 7 Jun 2022 (virtual, 9-10.30a East Coast). CDC-sponsored webinar entitled “Antifungal Resistance: Understanding this Growing Global Threat.” Hosted by the team at CDC’s Mycotic Diseases Division, this looks to be an excellent conversation. Go here to register.
- 8-9 Jun 2022 (virtual, 15.00-18.00 CEST / 9.00-12.00 EDT on both days): “Expert Workshop on Monoclonal Antibodies for AMR Pathogens” sponsored by the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut, on behalf of the COMBINE project. Day 1 focuses on preclinical development and translation (register here); Day 2 focuses on recurring problems and mitigation strategies in the clinical development (register here).
- 16-18 June 2022 (Perth, Australia): Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases Annual Scientific Meeting is a hybrid event for adult and pediatric infectious disease and clinical microbiology specialists. Go here for details.
- 21 Jun 2022 (virtual, 10:00-11:00 ET | 15:00-16:00 BST): Launch of the AMR Register. Sponsored by Vivli with funding from many partners, this is the launch of an open-access repository for industry-generated surveillance data. Looks interesting! Go here to register.
- 22-23 Jun 2022 (virtual, 10a to approx. 2.30p ET on both days): Workshop entitled “Strategies for Early-Stage Programs Developing Novel Antibacterial and Antifungal Drugs.” Sponsored by NIAID’s Bacteriology and Mycology Branch (BMB), this 2-day webinar features a very strong faculty (including speakers from FDA) discussing tips and insights for early product discovery including in-depth discussions of funding opportunities. The timing is US-centered but video replay will be available. Do not miss this! Go here to register.
- 11-14 July 2022 (Sydney): Australian Society for Microbiology Annual National Meeting is a hybrid event that will feature a range of lectures and symposium sessions, as well as extensive opportunities for networking. Go here for details.
- 24-27 July 2022 (Il Ciocco, Tuscany): Gordon Research Conference entitled “New Antibacterial Discovery and Development”. Go here for details, go here for the linked 5-6 Mar Gordon Research Seminar that precedes it.
- 28-31 July 2022 (Singapore): 10th International Congress of Asia Pacific Society of Infection Control is a hybrid event for professionals in the Asia Pacific region. Go here for details and to register.
- 12-13 Sep 2022 (virtual, 9a-5p ET): This meeting of PACCARB is going to “identify key issues and critical policy gaps through a series of facilitated discussions examining a hypothetical large-scale disease outbreak scenario based on historic examples and estimates of future AMR outbreaks.” Sounds like pandemic wargaming (Center for Health Security; pre-COVID 19 May 2020 NPR article) to me! Go here for details.
- 20-24 Sep 2022 (New Delhi): 21st Congress of the International Society for Human and Animal Mycology (ISHAM). Go here for details.
- 4-7 Oct 2022 (Dublin, Ireland): The 2022 ASM/ESCMID Joint Conference on Drug Development to Meet the Challenge of Antimicrobial Resistance. This is an excellent meeting, especially for developers … and if you’ve missed it, the recordings from the 2021 meeting are online. Go here for details on the 2022 meeting.
- 19-23 Oct 2022 (Washington, DC): IDWeek 2022, the joint annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA), the HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA), the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society (PIDS), and the Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists (SIDP). Go here for details.
- 15-23 Oct 2022 (in person, residential, Les Pensières, Veyrier-du-Lac, France): The 6th edition of Patrice Courvalin’s fabulous ICARe residential training course covering all things AMR is on for 2022! This is a soup-to-nuts training in AMR: it is very intense, very detailed, and always gets rave reviews from attendees. Registration is open 21 Mar 2022 to 21 June 2022 and is limited, so book your slot as soon as you can. Go here for details.
- 19-23 Oct 2022 (Washington, DC): IDWeek 2022, the joint annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA), the HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA), the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society (PIDS), and the Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists (SIDP). Go here for details.
- 25-28 Oct 2022 (Stellenbosch, South Africa): The University of Cape Town’s H3D Research Centre will celebrate its 10th anniversary with a symposium covering the Centre’s research on Malaria, TB, Neglected Tropical Diseases, and AMR. Go here to register.
- 17-20 Nov 2022 (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia): The International Congress on Infectious Diseases will take place for the first time as a hybrid event. Go here for details.
- 27-30 Nov 2022 (Perth, Australia): 32nd International Congress of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy is the biennial congress of the International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (ISAC). Go here for details.