WHO Forming Task Force of Antimicrobial Resistance Survivors

Dear All,

The WHO has announced a call for expressions of interests from AMR survivors and their caregivers to serve in the inaugural WHO Task Force of AMR Survivors! WHO are specifically looking for both (i) survivors of a drug-resistant infection and (ii) anyone who was a direct caregiver of such a patient. Their goal is to find 20 members to serve on the panel. 

There are two steps to the application for the Task Force:

1. Review the WHO Terms of Reference and learn more about what being part of the Task Force entails (Terms up to two years! Developing patient advocacy framework!)
2. Send a cover letter sharing your experience with AMR along with a brief CV/personal profile to whoams@who.int 

All applications will be treated in strict confidence and will not be shared outside the WHO secretariat. Application deadline is 15 September 2022! Only applications in English will be considered at this time.

This is a potentially a very big deal! The more stories that are shared, the easier it is for those outside of the AMR community to connect the dots on the current state of antimicrobial resistance. I always applaud any and all efforts for those who have had a deeply personal experience with AMR to share their story. Collections such as IDSA’s Patient Stories: The Faces of Antimicrobial Resistance, the Longitude Prize’s AMR Voices, and the Antimicrobial Resistance Fighter Coalition’s Antimicrobial Resistance Fighter Stories are excellent resources of some of the experiences others have had. I highly recommend reading a few stories if you are ever in need of AMR-related inspiration! I also am including one of my latest YouTube videos if you’d like to hear an AMR story in less than 3 minutes. 

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.
• [updated] INCATE (Incubator for Antibacterial Therapies in Europe) is an early-stage funding vehicle supporting innovation vs. drug-resistant bacterial infections. The fund provides advice, community, and non-dilutive funding (€10k in Stage I and up to €250k in Stage II) to support early-stage ventures in creating the evidence and building the team needed to get next-level funding. Details and contacts 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! For the most current update, watch this 30-minute video from the June 2022 kick-off webinar.
• 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):

• 30 August 2022 (virtual, 8.30a-5.00p ET): Webinar sponsored by CDC and FDA entitled “Drug Development Considerations for the Prevention of Healthcare-Associated Infections.” This is very timely as developing products for prevention is surprisingly hard. As just one example, see this 20 Dec 2018 newsletter about a valiant  (but failed, sadly) effort to develop a S. aureus vaccine. Go here for additional 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.
• [NEW] 15 Sep 2022 (virtual, 2-4p ET): Duke-Margolis webinar entitled “Advancing Bacterial Diagnostic Development.” The Duke-Margolis webinars are always informative … this one will focus on strategies for regulatory clearance of new diagnostics. Go here for more details and to register.
• 20-24 Sep 2022 (New Delhi): 21st Congress of the International Society for Human and Animal Mycology (ISHAM). Go here for details.
• [NEW … FDA AdComm … don’t miss it!] 22 Sep 2022 (virtual, 8.30-5.00p ET): FDA Advisory Committee discussing an application for approval of Rebyota (Fecal Microbiota, Live) with a requested indication to “reduce the recurrence of Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) in adults following antibiotic treatment for recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection.” The P3 data on this product showed superiority over placebo … and the AdComm will be an important master class for everyone interested in microbiome-based therapies. Go here for details.
• [HOT! Don’t miss it!] 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 6^th 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.
• 23 Oct 2022 (Cape Town, South Africa): Symposium entitled “Tackling AMR: How implementation research is vital in a One Health approach” sponsored by the AMR knowledge hub of TGHN (The Global Health Network). 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.
• 3-7 Dec 2022 (Banff, Canada): Novel Approaches Against Emerging Antimicrobial Resistance by Keystone Symposia. Go here for details. 
• 8-12 May 2023 (Lisbon, Portugal): 41st Annual Meeting of the European Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases. Go here for details.