Dear All,
As has been discussed in recent newsletters (link), the UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and NHS England launched a joint project July 2019 to test a payment model for antibiotic products, based on a product’s value to the NHS, rather than how much is used. This goal of the project is to incentivise companies to invest in researching and developing new antibiotics while helping secure much-needed alternative treatment options for NHS patients.
This will be the world’s first serious delinked incentive for antibiotics and is a really, really big deal! For more background, see the newsletter link above as well as this summary of prior literature on delinked models (link).
As a summary, the goal of the project is to select two drugs: one that received marketing authorisation in the UK between January 2017 and December 2019; and one that will receive a new marketing authorisation between January and December 2020. Both products will then undergo a health technology assessment (HTA) by NICE throughout 2021 using adapted methods for antimicrobials. The HTA will be used to estimate the value of each of the antibiotics
.
Today’s news is that suppliers can now register their interest for the scheme on NHS England’s eTendering Service, for which the deadline is 22nd July 2020. The link to the summary notice of the tender is no longer available (2 Feb 2024 update) but companies interesting in making a tender offer to the NHS can register here.
The clock is ticking: companies that meet the qualifying criteria will then be selected by 31st July 2020. Following this date, the product selection phase will take place with decisions by Dec 2020 — the expectation is that contracts will commence from April 2022.
Further information on the announcement can be found:
This is really happening! Wow! Wow! Wow! Go, Team UK! 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:
- Novo REPAIR Impact Fund is open for global applications through 21 Jul 2020. Go here for current details.
- 2020 funding rounds for CARB-X have not been announced.
- The Global AMR R&D Hub’s dynamic dashboard (link) summarizes funders and projects by geography, stage, and more.
Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:
- [NEW] 25 June 2020 (online, 13:00-14:00 CEST): JPIAMR webinar. Title: “Antibiotic Use: Have antibiotics been appropriately used in the COVID-19 pandemic?” Speaker: Jesús Rodriguez Baño will moderate a global panel discussion. Go here to register.
- 25 Jun 2020 (online, 14:00-15:00 CEST): GARDP REVIVE webinar. Title: “Putting children first in the fight against antibiotic resistance.” Speakers: Manica Balasegaram, Hanan Balkhy, Stafan Peterson. Go here register.
- [NEW] 25 June 2020 (online, 14:30-15:30 CEST): JPIAMR webinar. Title: “AMR Research: Facilitating AMR research in the COVID-19 pandemic” Speaker: Till Bachmann will moderate a global panel discussion. Go here to register.
- 30 Jun 2020 (online, 17:00-18:30 CEST): GARDP REVIVE webinar. Title: “Clinical development of antimicrobials – Phase 1 development challenges.” Speaker: Markus Zeitlinger. Go here to register.
- 9 Jul 2020 (online, 09:00-10:30 CEST): GARDP REVIVE webinar. Title: “The challenges and opportunities for antimicrobial R&D in low- and middle-income countries – India case study.” Speaker: Anand Anandkumar and Kamini Walla. Go here to register.
- 17 Jul-2 Aug 2020 (Marine Biology Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA): Residential course entitled “Molecular Mycology: Current Approaches to Fungal Pathogenesis.” This 2-week intensive training program has run annually for many years and gets outstanding reviews. Go here for details.
- [UPDATED] 27 Jul-31 Jul 2020 (online): Small World Initiative Instructor Training Workshop – training for undergraduate professors and high school teachers in wet lab techniques, parallel curricula, & pedagogical instruction to engage students in the hunt to find new antibiotics in soil (also covering distancing learning options). Go here to register.
- 4 Aug 2020 (Silver Spring): FDA workshop entitled “Development Considerations of Antifungal Drugs to Address Unmet Medical Need.” Go here to register.
- 5 Aug 2020 (Silver Spring): FDA workshop entitled “Developing Antifungal Drugs for the Treatment of Coccidioidomycosis (Valley Fever) Infection.” Go here to register.
- September 2020. University of Sheffield (UK). Applications are being taken for a new 1-year (full-time) or 2-year (part-time) Masters of Science course in Antimicrobial Resistance. The program runs annually from September and covers microbiology, clinical practice and policy. The course webpage is here.
- 9-10 Sep 2020 (Washington, DC): US PACCARB public meeting. Go here for details.
- 26-29 Oct 2020 (online meeting), Annual ESPID meeting (European Society for Pediatric ID, #38)
- 10-13 Apr 2021 (Vienna): Annual ECCMID meeting (#31)
- 20-24 June 2021 (Toronto): International Symposium on Pneumococci and Pneumococcal Diseases (ISPPD-12). Go here for details.
- 3-7 Jun 2021 (Anaheim), ASM Microbe 2021. Go here for details.
- 8-11 Oct 2021 (Aberdeen, Scotland): 10th Trends in Medical Mycology. Go here for details.
- 16-24 Oct 2021 (Annecy, France): Interdisciplinary Course on Antibiotics and Resistance (ICARe). This is a soup-to-nuts residential course on antibiotics, antibiotic resistance, and antibiotic R&D. The course is very intense, very detailed, and gets rave reviews. Registration is here and is limited to 40 students.
- 18-21 May 2021 (Albuquerque, New Mexico): Biannual meeting of the MSGERC (Mycoses Study Group Education and Research Consortium). Save-the-date announcement is here, details to follow.
