Dear All: There has been tremendously exciting activity in parallel with this week’s World Health Assembly! Here’s the list…
- CARB-X has announced this week that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK government will contribute $25 million and £20 million ($26.9 million), respectively, over the next 3 years. With this new inflow of $50m in committed funds, CARB-X has raised more than $500 million. And the money is being applied at a furious pace: from its launch 21 months ago on 28 July 2016, CARB-X has funded 36 companies!! Showing that the projects are moving swiftly and the portfolio is being actively managed, 33 are still being funded and 3 have reached a project endpoint.
- Antibiotic economics at BIO: The anti-infective track at the BIO meeting shows sessions that cover bacteria, fungi, and viruses. Note in particular these two:
- The session at 11a on 6 June entitled “The value of addressing AMR” appears especially relevant to the entire community as its speakers include Colm Leonard of NICE and Mark Sculpher of the Economic Evaluation Policy Research Unit (EEPRU) at the University of York. Dr. Leonard gave an excellent talk assessing the value of antibiotics at the 6-8 Sep 2017 ASM-ESCMID developer’s conference and I would expect Dr. Sculpher to present results from the U of York EEPRU’s work on de-linking antibiotic reimbursement from usage.
- The AMR Industry Alliance is sponsoring a session entitled “Forging antimicrobial R&D pacts” from 4-5p on 4 June that looks like a good panel discussion on challenges in the AMR space and ways to use partnership(s) to make progress.
- PLOS announced that it has collaborated with GARDP to launch an AMR channel. Described as a global forum for AMR research, the press release says that the channel will provide research, commentaries, blogs, news, and discussions that span science, research and development, public health, and policy.
- CDD (Collaborative Drug Discovery) will host a webinar on at 11a EST on 26 June on “SAR data in Drug Discovery”. Andrew Leach (ChEMBL) and Evan Bolton (PubChem) will discuss drug discovery informatics and ways to use the freely available PubChem and ChEMBL SAR data. This webinar is not specifically focused on AMR but rather looks like a good broad tour of tools that make SAR information more accessible.
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:
- [UPDATED] 4-7 Jun 2018 (Boston): BIO. The anti-infective track includes sessions that cover bacteria, fungi, viruses (Ebola, Influenza), and vaccines. Note especially the session at 11a on 6 June entitled “The value of addressing AMR” with speakers Colm Leonard (NICE) and Mark Sculpher (EEPRU at York) as well as the session at 4p on 4 June entitled “Forging antimicrobial R&D pacts”.
- 7-11 Jun 2018 (Atlanta): ASM Microbe
- 8 June 2018 (Atlanta): Antibiotic R&D Networking Event hosted by Pew Trusts and GARDP. Venue details and registration are here.
- 12-13 Jun 2018 (Washington): National Academies of Science workshop: Understanding the Economics of Microbial Threats
- 13 June 2018 (webinar, 5-6.30p CEST): The first of a series of GARDP+CARB-Xed webinars on development: Antibacterial drugs: clinical development for non-developers Part 1: Traditional development – tiers A and B
- 14 June 2018 (Washington): Duke-Margolis & FDA event: (link to register) “Understanding the Development Challenges Associated with Emerging Non-Traditional Antibiotics”
- 21-22 Jun 2018 (London): joint EMA-FDA-PMDA workshop on pediatric development of antibacterial agents.
- 22-26 Jun 2018 (Saskatoon, Canada): 5th International One Health Congress, including a dedicated AMR track
- [NEW] 26 June 2018 (CDD-sponsored webinar at 11a EST): “SAR data in Drug Discovery”. Andrew Leach (ChEMBL) and Evan Bolton (PubChem) will discuss drug discovery informatics and ways to use the freely available PubChem and ChEMBL SAR data.
- 22-27 Jul 2018 (Bryant University, Smithfield, RI): Gordon Research Conference on Drug Resistance for Cancer, Infectious Disease and Agriculture
- 21-22 Aug 2018 (Rockville, MD): NIAID-NINDS-DTRA workshop entitled “Infectious Disease in The CNS and Therapeutic Strategies to Cross the Blood-Brain Barrier”
- 4-7 Sep 2018 ESCMID-ASM Conference (#3) on Drug Development for AMR (Lisbon, Portugal)
- 24-28 Sep 2018 (Big Sky, Montana): MSG-ERC (Mycoses Study Group) Biennal meeting
- 3-7 Oct 2018 (San Francisco): ID Week
- 6-14 Oct 2018 International Course on Antibiotics and Resistance (ICARe, Les Pensières, Annecy, France)
- 26 Oct 2018 (London): EMA information day for SMEs: “Regulatory toolbox for medicines and combined devices developers”. Here is the current agenda. Webcast will be available. More details from sme@ema.europa.eu.
- 7-9 Nov 2018 (Seville, Spain): Better Methods for Clinical Studies in Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology: A Hands-on Workshop
