Push/Pull – AMR.Solutions https://amr.solutions Antimicrobial Resistance Solutions with Dr. John H. Rex Fri, 25 Sep 2026 10:14:24 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://amr.solutions/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Fire-Extinguisher-icon-70x70.png Push/Pull – AMR.Solutions https://amr.solutions 32 32 #AMRSOS! GRAM report: “at least 1.27m deaths/year directly attributable to AMR” https://amr.solutions/2022/01/20/amrsos-gram-report-at-least-1-27m-deaths-year-directly-attributable-to-amr/ Fri, 21 Jan 2022 03:39:09 +0000 https://13.43.35.2/?p=6893

17 Sep 2024 update: This is now the first of a 3-part newsletter series! See also part 2 (“R&D Implications: Global Burden of Disease is 28% Infectious!“) and part 3 (17 Sep 2024: “#AMRSOS! AMR could worsen, killing 39m during 2025-2050”). See also the 31 Aug 2026 newsletter entitled “#AMRSOS! The (human) cost of AMR: Data from 19 countries in Asia” for data from a prospective cohort study that documents the substantial impact of AMR in Asia.

Dear All,

There are days when it is hard to keep up! Not only did we have the release today of two amazing sets of RFPs from NIAID and BARDA (Vaccines! Therapeutics! Diagnostics! Bacteria! Fungi! Viruses! See this newsletter!) but we also have the impressive GRAM (Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance) report by Murray et al. Here are the details:

  • The paper: Murray CJL, Ikuta KS, Sharara F, Swetschinski L, Robles Aguilar G, Gray A, et al. Global burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance in 2019: a systematic analysis. The Lancet: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02724-0.
  • The key message: “at least 1.27 million deaths per year are directly attributable to AMR”
  • The details (well, some of the details — I quote here from the abstract):
    • “We estimated deaths and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) attributable to and associated with bacterial AMR for 23 pathogens and 88 pathogen–drug combinations in 204 countries and territories in 2019.
    • “We obtained data from systematic literature reviews, hospital systems, surveillance systems, and other sources, covering 471 million individual records or isolates and 7585 study-location-years. 
    • “On the basis of our predictive statistical models, there were an estimated 4·95 million (3·62–6·57) deaths associated with bacterial AMR in 2019, including 1·27 million (95% UI 0·911–1·71) deaths attributable to bacterial AMR.
    • “At the regional level, we estimated the all-age death rate attributable to resistance to be highest in western sub-Saharan Africa, at 27·3 deaths per 100 000 (20·9–35·3), and lowest in Australasia, at 6·5 deaths (4·3–9·4) per 100 000.
    • “Lower respiratory infections accounted for more than 1·5 million deaths associated with resistance in 2019, making it the most burdensome infectious syndrome.
    • “The six leading pathogens for deaths associated with resistance (Escherichia coli, followed by Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa) were responsible for 929 000 (660 000–1 270 000) deaths attributable to AMR and 3·57 million (2·62–4·78) deaths associated with AMR in 2019.
    • “One pathogen–drug combination, methicillin-resistant S aureus, caused more than 100 000 deaths attributable to AMR in 2019, while six more each caused 50 000–100 000 deaths: multidrug-resistant excluding extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, third-generation cephalosporin-resistant E coli, carbapenem-resistant A baumannii, fluoroquinolone-resistant E coli, carbapenem-resistant K pneumoniae, and third-generation cephalosporin-resistant K pneumoniae.”
  • The context: These are the most comprehensive global estimates of AMR burden since the  2016 estimates by the UK AMR Review and the magnitude of mortality due to AMR is similar (see discussion at the bottom of page 21 of the paper).
  • The graphics (31 Jan 2022 addendum): I show one graphic a bit further below, but Andrew Jack at the FT has done a superb job with graphics from this report in his 19 Jan 2022 commentary. This chart in particular delivers a sharp message:
  • Another key message: No one is safe: There are some really scary figures showing spread of highly resistant organisms. I show here the pattern of K. pneumoniae resistant to 3rd-generation cephalosporins (upper, these are the preferred first-line drugs) and carbapenems (lower, these are the backup agents … when these fail, you are in trouble). Purple is lowest rate of resistance, blue-green is < 50%, yellow-red is > 50%. As you can see, the resistant pathogens are steadily spreading: 



Wow! Wow! WOW! We’ll be referring to this one for years. MANY thanks to the impressive array of project sponsors: 

  • Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) (@IHME_UW)
  • University of Oxford  (@UniofOxford)
  • Wellcome Trust  (@WellcomeTrust),  (@Wellcome_AMR)
  • The Fleming Fund  (@FlemingFund)
  • UK Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) (@DHSCgovuk),
  • Global Health Security, DHSC (@UKgovGHS)
  • The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation  (@gatesfoundation),
  • The Lancet  (@TheLancet)
  • Dame Sally Davies, UK Special Envoy on Antimicrobial Resistance  (@UKAMREnvoy)


And, of course, the core message is that we’re in trouble. The antibacterial pipeline is thin (17 Jan 2022 newsletter), R&D for new antibacterial takes years (Dheman 2020 CID and the accompanying Rex-Outterson editorial), and (finally!) the economics of new antibiotics are horrid and require a fix in the form of substantial Pull Incentives paid to innovators upon approval of meaningful new therapies.

Our work is cut out for us! #AMRSOS! Get going!

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):

  • NIAID has released a four-pronged BAA (Broad Agency Announcement (HHS-NIH-NIAID-BAA2022-1) that covers therapeutics (antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral), vaccines (again, all 3 areas), and diagnostics. Lots of possibilities! The due date is 18 Mar 2022.
  • BARDA’s RFP to support new antibiotics for Yersinia pestis, Francisella tularensis, Burkholderia pseudomallei is open through 6 April 2022. The RFP offers from funding from LO to Phase 2. Go here for the details.
  • JPIAMR’s 14th call is now open. Entitled “Disrupting drug resistance using innovative design”, the call seeks consortia that would seek to “improve the treatment of bacterial and fungal infections (including co-infection) and/or the prevention of the emergence/spread of resistance in humans, animals or plants through the improvement of the efficacy, specificity, delivery, combinations and/or repurposing of drugs and plant protection agents.” Bacteria, fungi, human health, animal health, and plant health are all in scope! Pre-proposals are due 8 Mar 2022; full proposals would be due 5 July 2022. Go here for details.
  • 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/).
  • CARB-X recently announced that their existing resources will be reserved to fund their existing portfolio (more than 80 total awards, and counting, as they include contracting from prior rounds). New rounds from CARB-X will occur only after new funding is obtained in 2021.
  • 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):

  • [If you missed it, you can now watch the video] 8 Dec: “The New Winds Pushing and Pulling Antibacterial Development.” This was a GREAT program that 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!
  • 26 Jan 2022 (virtual, 2-3.30p CET): REVIVE (GARDP) Webinar: New technologies and strategies to overcome the challenges of sexually transmitted infections. Moderated by Amir Schroufi and Remco Peters, the program will covers strategies for managing STDs with a particular focus on the developing world. Go here to register.
  • 2-3 Feb 2022 (virtual): 10th Advances Against Aspergillosis and Mucormycosis. Registration closes on 30 Jan 2022. Go here for details.
  • 2-3 Feb 2022 (virtual): Antimicrobial Chemotherapy Virtual Conference jointly organised by GARDP with the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (BSAC), Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP) and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). Click here for details.
  • [NEW] 4 Feb 2022 (virtual, 5-6.30p GMT): Launch of the GRAM (Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance) report. Sponsored by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the University of Oxford, the Fleming Fund, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Wellcome Trust, this report by Murray et al. is based on 471 million individual records or isolates and 7585 study-location-years’ worth of data and shows that at least 1.27 million deaths per year are directly attributable to AMR. Amazing stuff! #AMRSOS! Go here to register. If you miss it, a post-event recording will be available.
  • 7 Feb 2022 (virtual, 10a-11.30a and 3:30p-5p CET): 2-part webinar entitled Antimicrobial Consumption & Use – Data for Action as part of the WHO Global Webinar Series. Be sure to register for both session 1 and session 2! 
  • 3-6 Mar 2022 (Albuquerque, New Mexico): Biannual meeting of the MSGERC (Mycoses Study Group Education and Research Consortium). Details are here.
  • 6-11 Mar 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.
  • 9 Mar 2022 (virtual, and in-person): BioInfect Conference, Alderley Park, UK (near Manchester). This long-running Bionow-sponsored annual conference draws a very strong audience. Go here for details.
  • 7-8 Apr 2022 (Basel and in person, we hope): The 6th edition of the annual AMR conference sponsored by the BEAM Alliance, CARB-X, the Novo REPAIR Impact Fund, the IMI Accelerator, and the European Biotechnology Network. Go here for the hold-the-date page and a way to be kept informed about the meeting. 
  • 9-13 May 2022 (Athens and online): 40th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases, 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.
  • 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.
]]> AMR Science-Policy Symposia (ESCMID 2026): Smart policies for lean times https://amr.solutions/2026/04/19/amr-science-policy-fora-escmid-2026-smart-policies-for-lean-times/ Sun, 19 Apr 2026 19:07:19 +0000 https://amr.solutions/?p=25423

Dear All:

ESCMID Global once again held an afternoon of sessions focused on the intersection of AMR-related science and policy. With an overall theme of “Smart policies for lean times,” the well-attended afternoon comprised a pair of workshops, a plenary session, and a networking reception (I’ll also note that there was a related integrated workshop [“Aligning research and policy to unlock antibiotic innovation”, supported by GSK] that preceded the afternoon but I was unable to attend it). 

Importantly, I am told that this series is going to continue to be implemented on the Friday that begins ESCMID. Next year, that will be Friday 9 Apr 2027 with ESCMID running 9-13 April 2027 in Stockholm. So, mark your calendars now for next year! 

Back to this year, the afternoon’s parallel workshops were evidence-focused:

Both session were full to overflowing with standing room only for later arrivals!

2026-04-17 Science-policy workshop

Above, photo credit Robert Skov — lots of interest in these workshops … we need bigger rooms next year!

After the workshops, the plenary (opened by Robert Skov and then chaired by Jon Friedland) featured:

  • (opening comments) Hon. Minister Mekdes Daba, Global Leaders Group on AMR, and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General
  • (keynote) “AMR policy action under pressure: doing more with less”: Naomi Rupasinghe (World Bank, Washington, USA)
  • “Efficient and effective IPC [Infection Prevention and Control]”: Benedetta Allegranzi (WHO Regional Office for The Eastern Mediterranean, Cairo, Egypt)
  • “Prevention pays off: vaccination policies for AMR” by Padmini Srikantiah (Gates Foundation, Seattle, USA)
  • “Global AWaRe targets and national cost savings“: Koen Pouwels (University of Oxford, Oxford, UK)
  • “A gram of prevention or a kilo of cure?“: Javier Yugueros-Marcos (World Organisation for Animal Health, Paris, France)


A full summary of the afternoon’s content is more than I can make happen lest this newsletter become a version of a long novel! But, I would like to give a tour of the ideas shared by each speaker:

First up, Naomi Rupasinghe’s keynote focused on the ways that she has been working from the World Bank to create workable investment opportunities in AMR. I’ve gotten to know her work through sitting with her on the World Economic Forum’s AMR Global Future Council and its 2026 Davos Compact on AMR that now has > 50 signatories (see this blog).

Now, you may well react to “investment” and “AMR” with “no one wants to go there”, but there are examples of creating impact or social investment possibilities for investors who want to assist social causes such as health care, housing or education. A 22 Sep 2019 Wall Street Journal story entitled “Bonds That Do Good—and, Maybe, Well” provides a good summary of these ideas as does the discussion in the 11 Nov 2025 newsletter entitled (“Milken Future of Health Summit: AMR Symposium”).

Naomi’s talk showed us the path forward in AMR with an example from the vaccine world where the IFFIm (International Finance Facility for Immunisation) leveraged long-term pledges from 11 sovereign governments to raise $6.2b from the capital markets … and thus, 233m children were immunized:

For more on this type of work see this UNESCO report entitled “Advanced Market Commitment [AMC] for Pneumococcal Vaccines” as well as this pair of reports from GAVI about the pneumococcal vaccine AMC and its impact



Next up, WHO’s Benedetta Allegranzi summarized the progress we’ve made in developing (and implementing) best practices for IPC (Infection Prevention and Control). In 2023, we had release of the WHO’s Global Strategy on IPC and then in 2025 we had the release of a practical guide to Development and implementation of national action plans for infection prevention and control: practical guide:




The third speaker, Padmini Srikantiah, Deputy Director at the Gates Foundation, gave us a tour of the impact of vaccines. She noted that existing vaccines (alone!) would annually avert 106k deaths, 9.1m DALYs, US$861m in hospital costs, and US$5.9b in productivity losses. Combined with future vaccines, the potential value is staggering!

I particularly enjoyed this figure highlighting the durability of vaccines. The x-axis is time (years) and each line represents a drug or vaccine, starting from the time of its introduction to the first documented resistance-related failure in a human (an X). Look closely! All the red drug lines end in an X whereas only a few of the vaccines end with an X … and even then, it takes many years for resistance to develop to vaccines vs. often relatively prompt resistance to the drugs.

2026-04-17 Figure from Kennedy 2018, durability of vaccines

Figure above is from Kennedy DA and Read AF. Why the evolution of vaccine resistance is less of a concern than the evolution of drug resistance. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2018;115(51):12878–86, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1717159115.



Fourth, Koen Pouwels (U Oxford), reviewed his research on the value of adjusting prescribing patterns so that usage in the Access category of the WHO AWaRe (Access-Watch-Reserve) antibiotic ranking hits the UNGA HLM-AMR target of ~70%. Based on modeling that grouped regions by sociodemographic factors and infection patterns (“latent class modeling”), substantial savings were possible … and please read his paper for more details! And for more on AWaRe, see the 13 Dec 2022 newsletter entitled “WHO AWaRe antibiotic handbook released!”

2026-04-17 Koen Pouwels - Latent class modeling




Fifth, Javier Yugueros-Marcos (World Organisation for Animal Health) reminded us that AMR is already causing $17b in annual GDP losses in livestock production with the potential for the cost to rise to $159b annually by 2050 if we don’t act (26 Sep 2024 report from WOAH). Building on a classic concept with his title “A gram of prevention or a kilo of cure,” he showed the potential for modern interventions to have a huge impact (in this example using AI-enabled CCTV monitoring):




Finally, WHO’s JP Nyemazi closed the session by first reviewing the political work that brought us to the 2024 UNGA HLM on AMR (graphic from 15 Apr 2023 newsletter):

Roadmap to UNGA 2024


… followed by a discussion of what is coming for IPEA (the Independent Panel on Evidence for Action; see the 6 Jul 2025 newsletter entitled “Establishing an Independent Panel on Evidence for Action”) as well as updates to the Global Action Plan (GAP) on AMR:

2026-04-17 Nyemazi - Next steps for IPEA

As noted on the slides, the IPEA is scheduled to launch by 3Q26; the updated GAP will be endorsed next month at the World Health Assembly (WHA).


Whoosh! Very exciting to see all this work underway! We truly do need “Smart policies for lean times”  so that we effectively deploy the resources available. By continuing to work in a collaborative way across OneHealth sectors, we can make the case to policy makers for thoughtful, integrated solutions that are sustainable over generations.

What a great afternoon … many thanks to ESCMID for this ongoing series! And after all of that, we were ready for a beer at the networking reception! If you were there, it was great to see you! If you weren’t there … we’ll see everyone at this event next year!

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.

John’s Top Recurring Meetings
Virtual meetings are easy to attend, but regular attendance at annual in-person events is the key to building your network and gaining deeper insight. My personal favorites for such in-person meetings are below. Of particular value for developers, the small meeting format of BEAM’s AMR Conference (March) and GAMRIC (September-October; formerly, the ESCMID-ASM conference series) creates excellent global networking. IDWeek (October) and ECCMID (April) are much larger meetings but also provide opportunities for networking with a substantial, focused audience via their Pipeline sessions. Hope to see you there!

  • 17-21 April 2026 (Munich, Germany): ESCMID Global 2026, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. You can go here to register and view the program.The meeting schedule will again includes a Science Policy Forum on Friday afternoon (all who are interested in Pull incentives should be there!) and an innovation-focused Pipeline Monday.
  • 22-24 Sep 2026 (Lisbon, Portugal): The 2nd GAMRIC, the Global AMR Innovators Conference (London, UK). Formerly the ESCMID-ASM (or ASM-ESCMID depending on location) Joint Conference on Drug Development for AMR, 2026 will be the 11th year for this series that is now under the joint sponsorship of CARB-X, ESCMID, BEAM Alliance, GARDP, LifeArc, Boston University, and AMR.Solutions. The ongoing series employs the successful format of prior meetings with a single-track meeting and substantial networking time. The 2025 meeting was a sell-out success! A written summary of the 2025 meeting is here and the videos from the sessions are now available here. Registration for the 2026 meeting is now open and you can view the preliminary program here. Abstract submissions are open through Fri 10 Apr at noon CET; note as well that travel grants are available for attendees with accepted abstracts. A late-breaker window be announced for July.
  • 21-24 Oct 2026 (Washington, DC, USA): IDWeek 2026, the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Details are not yet available but I would expect the program to continue to provide a substantial opportunity to present a product to a large audience (see also adjacent note about ESCMID) as well as opportunities to present at an IDWeek Pipeline Session.
  • 23-24 Mar 2027 (Basel, Switzerland): The 10th AMR Conference (3-4 Mar 2026) is now over and offered a rich program that included a 10-year retrospective (we’ve done a lot!), regulatory updates, discussions of how to pursue development in China, and much more … in addition to being a superb opportunity for networking! I am told the session videos will soon be available on the conference website. Mark your calendars for next year’s 11th AMR Conference!

  Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:

  • 17-21 April 2026 (Munich, Germany): ESCMID Global 2026, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. See Recurring Meetings list, above.
  • 28 Apr 2026 (9:30-11:00 CET, virtual): REVIVE (GARDP)-sponsored webinar: “Natural product-inspired antibiotics: Successes and future prospects.” Go here for details and to register.
  • 4-8 June 2026 (Washington, DC): ASM Microbe, the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. The meeting format is evolving and next year will combine 3 meetings (ASM Health, ASM Applied and Environmental Microbiology, and ASM Mechanism Discovery) into one event. Go here for details.
  • 11-12 Jun 2026 (Washington, DC): The Second Annual Unite for Sepsis Symposium, presented by the Sepsis Alliance. The event seeks to accelerate progress in sepsis research and care. Go here for details and to register.
  • 22-24 Sep 2026 GAMRIC (Lisbon, Portugal), the Global AMR Innovators Conference (London, UK; formerly the ESCMID-ASM Joint Conference on Drug Development for AMR). See list of Top Recurring meetings, above..
  • 10-18 Oct 2026 (Annecy, France, residential in-person program): ICARe (Interdisciplinary Course on Antibiotics and Resistance) … and 2026 will be the 10th year for this program. Patrice Courvalin orchestrates content with the support of an all-star scientific committee and faculty. The resulting soup-to-nuts training covers all aspects of antimicrobials, is very intense, and routinely gets rave reviews! Registration for 2026 will be during March 16–July 3, 2026. You can go here for more details and you should put a reminder in your calendar register on / after 16 March.
  • 21-24 Oct 2026 (Washington, DC, USA): IDWeek 2026. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • [Abstract deadline is 28 April!] 10-13 November 2026 (Madrid, Spain): The International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID) has announced its 21st International Congress on Infectious Diseases (ICID). Register and view the preliminary program here (Early bird closes 30 July 2026); abstract deadline is 28 April 2026.
  • 23-24 Mar 2027 (Basel, Switzerland): The 11th AMR Conference sponsored by the BEAM Alliance. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • ??? Mar 2028 (yes, that’s 2028, with location TBD): The 2028 Gordon Research Conference (GRC, https://www.grc.org/) entitled “Antibacterials of Tomorrow to Combat the Global Threat of Antimicrobial Resistance” and its related Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) for young doctoral and post-doctoral researchers will be sometime in March 2028. The organizers hope to coordinate dates and location with the 2028 BEAM-AMR meeting. Details to follow — mark your calendar!

Self-paced courses, online training materials, and other reference materials:


Current funding opportunities

  • [NEW] Wellcome Leap have announced a $50m funding round to support development of technologies that would spare the gut, focus the delivery of the antibiotic to the site of infection, and (thereby) reduce the rate of emergence of resistance. The application timeline is soon and short: 8-15 May 2026. See the 19 Apr 2026 newsletter for details.
  • CARB-X have announced a funding round that will be open 8-22 April 2026 (there will also be a round during 4Q 2026). There are 4 funding themes as below. Informational webinars have been announced for 9 and 10 April 2026.
    • Direct-acting therapeutics for infections caused by Gram-negative bacteria
    • Novel Chemistry for AMR Challenge – target-based therapeutics.
    • Non-vaccine approaches to prevent neonatal sepsis
    • Diagnostics for neonatal sepsis
  • The Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027 includes at least 3 calls of interest within its Cluster 1 — see the list below.  The application window starts 10 Feb 2026 and closes on 16 Apr 2026. See also the 12 Dec 2025 newsletter about the call. Note as well that there calls for agents to prevent and/or treat viral infections.
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2027-01-DISEASE-08: Development of innovative antimicrobials against pathogens resistant to antimicrobials
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2027-02-IND-02: Portable point-of-care diagnostics
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01-DISEASE-03:Advancing research on the prevention, diagnosis, and management of post-infection long-term conditions. 
  • ENABLE-2 has continuously open calls for both its Hit-to-Lead program as well as its Hit Identification/Validation incubator. Applicants must be academics and non-profits in Europe due to restrictions from the funders. Applications are evaluated in cycles … see the website for details on current timing for reviews. 
  • BARDA’s long-running BAA (Broad Agency Announcement) for medical countermeasures (MCMs) for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats, pandemic influenza, and emerging infectious diseases is now BAA-23-100-SOL-00004 and offers support for both antibacterial and antifungal agents (as well as antivirals, antitoxins, diagnostics, and more). Note especially these Areas of Interest: Area 3.1 (MDR Bacteria and Biothreat Pathogens), Area 3.2 (MDR Fungal Infections), and Area 7.2 (Antibiotic Resistance Diagnostics for Priority Bacterial Pathogens). Although prior BAAs used a rolling cycle of 4 deadlines/year, the updated BAA released 26 Sep 2023 has a 5-year application period that ends 25 Sep 2028 and is open to applicants regardless of location: BARDA seeks the best science from anywhere in the world! See also this newsletter for further comments on the BAA and its areas of interest.
  • HERA Invest was launched August 2023 with €100 million to support innovative EU-based SMEs in the early and late phases of clinical trials. Part of the InvestEU program supporting sustainable investment, innovation, and job creation in Europe, HERA Invest is open for application to companies developing medical countermeasures that address one of the following cross-border health threats: (i) Pathogens with pandemic or epidemic potential, (ii) Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) threats originating from accidental or deliberate release, and (iii) Antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Non-dilutive venture loans covering up to 50% of investment costs are available. A closing date is not posted insofar as I can see — applications are accepted on a rolling basis; go here for more details.
  • The AMR Action Fund is open on an ongoing basis 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 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/).
  • These things aren’t sources of funds but would help you develop funding applications
    • 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. See also the 7 Feb 2026 newsletter (“The global funding pipeline, 2017-2023: A review”) about an excellent deep dive by the Hub team into patterns of funding over time.
    • Antimicrobial Resistance Research and Innovation in Australia is an actively updated summary that covers Australia’s AMR research and patent landscape. It is provided via collaboration between The Lens (an ambitious project seeking to discover, analyse, and map global innovation knowledge) and CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research). Lots to explore here!
    • Diagnostic developers would find valuable guidance in this 6-part series on in vitro diagnostic (IVD) development. Sponsored by CARB-X, C-CAMP, and FIND, it pulls together real-life insights into a succinct set of tutorials.
  • 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).
]]> Most current global summary of Pull incentives https://amr.solutions/2025/04/13/most-current-global-summary-of-pull-incentives/ Sun, 13 Apr 2025 14:24:34 +0000 https://amr.solutions/?p=18082

Dear All,

I was recently asked about a ready summary of the current state of play of Pull incentives around the globe. In response, here are two related resources:

First, WHO and the Global AMR R&D Hub jointly author an update on the state of incentives for R&D. Their most current report is dated 14 Oct 2024. Their prior comprehensive reports were in 2022 and 2023.  

Second, the Hub maintains a comprehensive dashboard of push and pull incentives. To see current Pull incentives, click on “Across the value chain” and then select the option for “enhancing relative market attractiveness.” Here’s what you’ll see as of today:


From here, you can drill through to summaries such as this:


I have also put these links on the AMR.Solutions incentives webpage: https://amr.solutions/incentives/.

Cheers! –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

  • The Trinity Challenge on Community Access to Effective Antibiotics is a £1 million innovation competition that seeks applications to answer the question: “How can data and technology improve stock control and/or reduce the use of substandard and falsified oral antibiotics for community use in low- and middle-income countries?” Applications are open at this website until 24 April 2025.
  • HERA posted a call on 24 Mar 2025 entitled “Development of a Rapid Point-of-care Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing Diagnostic Medical Device (HADEA/2025/CPN/0006).” In it, they call for tenders under which they will provide up to 13m EUR for development of a point-of-care diagnostic medical device that can provide antimicrobial susceptibility results on the bacteria or fungi causing an infection in humans, within one hour or less from subject sample collection, and ideally, to also allow for pathogen identification. To apply, you must submit a request to participate by 12 May 2025; selected candidates who met the eligibility criteria will be able to submit a full technical tender. Go to the EU Funding and Tenders Portal to apply; see also the 19 Feb 2025 newsletter for details.
  • ENABLE-2 has continuously open calls for both its Hit-to-Lead program as well as its Hit Identification/Validation incubator. Applicants must be academics and non-profits in Europe due to restrictions from the funders. Applications are evaluated in cycles … see the website for details on current timing for reviews. 
  • CARB-X will have two during 2025 that span two areas: (i) Small molecules for Gram-negatives (the focus is on Pseudomonas aeruginosa) and (ii) Diagnostics for typhoid (the focus is diagnosis of acute infections in 60 minutes or less). See this 26 Feb 2025 newsletter for a discussion of the call and go here for the CARB-X webpage on the call. The first cycle will accept expressions of interest during the window 16-30 April 2025; the 2nd round will be open 1-12 Dec 2025.
  • BARDA’s long-running BAA (Broad Agency Announcement) for medical countermeasures (MCMs) for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats, pandemic influenza, and emerging infectious diseases is now BAA-23-100-SOL-00004 and offers support for both antibacterial and antifungal agents (as well as antivirals, antitoxins, diagnostics, and more). Note especially these Areas of Interest: Area 3.1 (MDR Bacteria and Biothreat Pathogens), Area 3.2 (MDR Fungal Infections), and Area 7.2 (Antibiotic Resistance Diagnostics for Priority Bacterial Pathogens). Although prior BAAs used a rolling cycle of 4 deadlines/year, the updated BAA released 26 Sep 2023 has a 5-year application period that ends 25 Sep 2028 and is open to applicants regardless of location: BARDA seeks the best science from anywhere in the world! See also this newsletter for further comments on the BAA and its areas of interest.
  • HERA Invest was launched August 2023 with €100 million to support innovative EU-based SMEs in the early and late phases of clinical trials. Part of the InvestEU program supporting sustainable investment, innovation, and job creation in Europe, HERA Invest is open for application to companies developing medical countermeasures that address one of the following cross-border health threats: (i) Pathogens with pandemic or epidemic potential, (ii) Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) threats originating from accidental or deliberate release, and (iii) Antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Non-dilutive venture loans covering up to 50% of investment costs are available. A closing date is not posted insofar as I can see — applications are accepted on a rolling basis; go here for more details.
  • The AMR Action Fund is open on an ongoing basis 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 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/).
  • These things aren’t sources of funds but would help you develop funding applications
    • 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.
    • Diagnostic developers would find valuable guidance in this 6-part series on in vitro diagnostic (IVD) development. Sponsored by CARB-X, C-CAMP, and FIND, it pulls together real-life insights into a succinct set of tutorials.
  • 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).

John’s Top Recurring Meetings
Virtual meetings are easy to attend, but regular attendance at annual in-person events is the key to building your network and gaining deeper insight. My personal favorites for such in-person meetings are below. Of particular value for developers are BEAM’s AMR Conference and GAMRIC (formerly, the ESCMID-ASM conference series). Hope to see you there!

  • 11-15 April 2025 (Vienna, Austria): ESCMID Global 2025, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Go here for details. 
  • [UPDATED DATES, PRELIMINARY AGENDA] 1-3 Oct 2025 GAMRIC, the Global AMR Innovators Conference (Washington, DC). Formerly the ESCMID-ASM Joint Conference on Drug Development for AMR, this meeting series is being continued under the joint sponsorship of CARB-X, ESCMID, BEAM, GARDP, LifeArc, WHO, and AMR.Solutions. You can’t yet register for the 2025 meeting but please mark your calendar now and note that the meeting now runs 1-3 Oct (instead of 30 Sep-2 Oct). The ongoing series is expected to continue that successful format of prior meetings with a (mostly) single-track meeting. You can go here to see the initial details for the 2025 meeting (including a preliminary agenda) and go here to see details of the outstanding 2024 meeting. The abstract submission window will run 28 April to 13 June; an application round for travel grants is expected to run 16 April to 16 May.
  • 19-22 Oct 2025 (Georgia, USA): IDWeek 2025, the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Details pending; go here for the general meeting website.
  • 3-4 Mar 2026 (Basel, Switzerland): The 10th AMR Conference. Sponsored by the BEAM Alliance, the 9th AMR Conference has just concluded and it’s again been an excellent meeting! Please mark your calendar for next year. You can’t register yet, but details will appear here! 

  Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:

  • 11-15 April 2025 (Vienna, Austria): ESCMID Global 2025, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. See Recurring Meetings list, above.
    • During ESCMID, mark your calendar for the Science Policy forum during which we’ll have follow-up from UNGA 2024  (11 April, 3-8p CEST) and Pipeline Monday (14 April) during which we’ll have a variety of sessions on the antimicrobial pipeline. See also the 13 Feb 2025 newsletter for details and commentary.
    • I’ve also learned of a 14 April (12.15-1.15p, Hall 8) symposium on mechanisms to expand access to antibiotics. To find this one, you have to go the general program and navigate to Hall 8 at 12.15p. Awkward, but a direct link is not possible due the design of the ESCMID webpage.
  • 30 Apr 2025 (virtual, 10-5.15p ET): Presented by Sepsis Alliance, the Sepsis Alliance AMR Conference is 1-day virtual discussion of AMR- and sepsis-focused diagnostics, therapeutics, and advocacy. Go here for details and to register.
  • 30 June – 1 July (in person and virtual, Grand Hyatt, Washington DC): BARDA Industry Days 2025 (BID2025) with the theme “Enhancing Health Security With a Sustainable Future.” This is a major annual opportunity to interact with BARDA and ASPR teams and thereby identify potential areas of collaboration in the field of MCM (medical countermeasure) research and development. Go here for details.
  • 19-22 Oct 2025 (Georgia, USA): IDWeek 2025, the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society 
  • 11-15 April 2025 (Vienna, Austria): ESCMID Global 2025. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • 30 June-1 July 2025 (virtual and in Washington, DC): BID2025: BARDA Industry Days — Enhancing Health Security With a Sustainable Future has been cancelled. The  website hints at the idea of rescheduling, but no details are given.
  • 1-3 Oct 2025 GAMRIC, the Global AMR Innovators Conference (Washington, DC; formerly the ESCMID-ASM Joint Conference on Drug Development for AMR). See list of Top Recurring meetings, above..
  • 19-22 Oct 2025 (Georgia, USA): IDWeek 2025. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • 11-19 Oct 2025 (Annecy, France, residential in-person program): ICARe (Interdisciplinary Course on Antibiotics and Resistance) … and 2025 will be the 9th year for this program. Patrice Courvalin orchestrates content with the support of an all-star scientific committee and faculty. The resulting soup-to-nuts training covers all aspects of antimicrobials, is very intense, and routinely gets rave reviews! Seating is limited, so mark your calendars now if you are interested. Applications should open ~March 2025 — go here for more details.
  • 3-4 Mar 2026 (Basel, Switzerland): The 10th AMR Conference sponsored by the BEAM Alliance. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • 8-13 Mar 2026 (Renaissance Tuscany Il Ciocco, Italy): 2026 Gordon Research Conference (GRC) entitled “Antibacterials of Tomorrow to Combat the Global Threat of Antimicrobial Resistance.” A Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) will be held the weekend before (7-8 Mar) for young doctoral and post-doctoral researchers. Space for the GRS and the GRC is limited; for details and to apply, go here for the GRC and here for the GRS.

Self-paced courses, online training materials, and other reference materials:

]]> Tragedy of the (Antibiotic) Commons: A true market failure https://amr.solutions/2024/03/19/tragedy-of-the-antibiotic-commons-a-true-market-failure/ Tue, 19 Mar 2024 05:00:14 +0000 https://13.43.35.2/?p=11552

Dear All,

In a 28 Feb 2024 newsletter entitled “How Economists (And Finance Ministers) Think…”, we reviewed an important new paper on the economics of antibiotics from Anthony McDonnell and his colleagues at CGD (Center for Global Development). The paper’s core theme was that the antibiotic market represents a set of market failures which collectively converge as a common pool problem, aka The Tragedy of the Commons (TOTC) or, for our purposes, TOTAC: The Tragedy of the Antibiotic Commons.

Coined in 1968 by Garrett Hardin in his essay in Science entitled “The Tragedy of the Commons: The population problem has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental extension in morality,” TOTC built on the recognized problem of over-grazing of cattle on shared public land (aka, “the commons” in English villages). In its most general form, TOTC is the idea that unrestricted access to a finite resource will lead to its overuse and destruction. Everyone is motivated to use as much as they want, self-restraint just leaves more for others, and no one has a motivation to care for the resource. (As a general resource, the Wikipedia article on TOTC is very good.)

The elegant idea from the paper by Anthony & colleagues is that they reduce TOTC/TOTAC to an AMR-related picture in which diverse antibiotics (the finite resource) are shown as a pool that is fed by R&D (e.g., CARB-X) and then drained as antibiotic use creates antibiotic resistance (AMR):

To dig a bit further into this, I was able to visit with Anthony to have him talk through the ideas in the paper. My frequent collaborator Kevin Outterson came along for the discussion and the result is this 35-minute tour of the ideas of TOTAC:

The deck used in the talk is available here: https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/rex-fire-talk.pptx.

Please make time for this one! Anthony’s tour of the ideas is excellent as are Kevin’s builds. As a bonus, we close with a discussion of how TOTC/TOTAC underpins the economics of Pride & Prejudice (yes, Jane Austen!) based on the idea of future interest holders from the Statute of Gloucester enacted in English law in 1278!

And as another new idea (as if linking to P&P weren’t enough), we also discuss the concept of government intervention to support pharmaceuticals (e.g., the PASTEUR Act) is not at all unusual … the Orphan Drug Act of 1983 and the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 both represent interventions that were needed to ensure products were developed and sustained in the market. PASTEUR addresses a specific problem but the principle of (sometimes) needing government intervention is not new. Indeed, the whole point is that true market failures are intractable without government intervention … despite the common mantra, not all government intervention is a bad thing!

Extraordinary! Most of us aren’t economists, but moving the needle on reimbursement for new antibiotics requires the we collectively speak the language of economics. TOTAC and related phrases are actually quite easy to use and explain!

Happy listening! With thanks to all who are putting their blood, sweat, and tears into addressing the problem of antibiotic availablity, –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.

John’s Top Recurring Meetings

Virtual meetings are easy to attend, but regular attendance at annual in-person events is the key to building your network and gaining deeper insight. My personal favorites for such in-person meetings are below. Of particular value for developers are the AMR Conference and the ASM-ESCMID conference. Hope to see you there!

  • 6-7 Mar 2024 (Basel, Switzerland): The 8th AMR Conference 2024. Go here to register! Now past for 2024; will update with 2025 dates when available.
  • 27-30 April 2024 (Barcelona, Spain): 34th ECCMID, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Go here for details. 
  • 17-20 Sep 2024 (Porto, Portugal): ASM/ESCMID Joint Conference on Drug Development to Meet the Challenge of Antimicrobial Resistance. Go here for the meeting’s general website. You can’t register (yet) for the 2024 event, but save the date!
  • 16-20 Oct 2024 (Los Angeles, USA): IDWeek 2024, the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Save the date! More details to come!

Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:

  • 20 Mar 2024 (virtual, 12.00-13.30 CET): WHO-sponsored webinar on the WHO Medically Important Antimicrobial List (WHO MIA List) that was updated on 11 Feb 2024 (previously, this known as the WHO Critically Important List for Human Medicine). Go here to register.
  • 25-26 Mar 2024 (In person, London): “Novel Diagnostics for Infectious Diseases,” a 2-day workshop co-organised and funded by Imperial College London’s Institute of Infection, JPIAMR-funded B2B2B Network, London In Vitro Diagnostics Co-operative, NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, and DIAMONDS consortium. Go here for details and to register.
  • 10-11 Apr 2024 (virtual): Sepsis Alliance AMR Conference, a 2-day conference focused on “practical technologies to manage sepsis and counteract the expanding challenge of antimicrobial resistance.” Go here for details and to register.
  • 26 Apr 2024 (Barcelona, Spain): ESCMID workshop entitled “Using Data Science and Machine Learning for Infection Science: A Hands-on Introduction.” Click here to register or here for more details. 
  • 27-30 April 2024 (Barcelona, Spain): 34th ECCMID, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. See Recurring Meetings list, above.
  • 26-31 May 2024 (Montreal, Canada): EDAR7, the McGill AMR Centre’s 7th edition of their Environmental Dimension of Antimicrobial Resistance conference. Go here for details; final abstract deadline is 21 Dec 2023.
  • 28-29 May 2024 (in person, Uppsala, Sweden): Uppsala Antibiotic Days, a broad-ranging 2-day program hosted by the Uppsala Antibiotic Center. Go here for details and to register.
  • 9-13 June 2024 (in person, Ascona, Switzerland): “New Approaches to Combat Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria, 2nd Edition” is a Sunday-Thursday residential workshop focused on the deep biology of AMR. Sponsored by NCCR AntiResist (a Swiss National Science Foundation consortium), the scientific program has the feel of a Gordon Conference. Space is limited, so you are encouraged to apply promptly — go here for details.
  • 13-17 June 2024 (Atlanta, Georgia): ASM Microbe, the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. You can’t register yet, but you can go here for general details.
  • 17-20 Sep 2024 (Porto, Portugal): ASM/ESCMID Joint Conference on Drug Development to Meet the Challenge of Antimicrobial Resistance. See Recurring Meetings list, above.
  • 16-20 Oct 2024 (Los Angeles, USA): IDWeek 2024, the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. See Recurring Meetings list, above. 
  • 19-27 Oct 2024 (Annecy, France, residential in-person program): ICARe (Interdisciplinary Course on Antibiotics and Resistance). Now in its 8th year, Patrice Courvalin directs the program with the support of an all-star scientific committee and faculty. The resulting soup-to-nuts training covers all aspects of antimicrobials, is very intense, and routinely gets rave reviews! Seating is limited, so mark your calendars now if you are interested. Applications open in March 2024 — go here for more details.
  • 4-5 Dec 2024 (in person, Washington, DC): “Fungal Dx 2024: Fungal Diagnostics in Clinical Practice” is a 2-day in-person workshop organized by ISHAM‘s Fungal Diagnostics Working Group. The program and registration links are available at https://fungaldx.com/; the agenda is comprehensive and features an all-star global list of speakers.
]]> Progress (at least some!) towards a global pull incentive https://amr.solutions/2025/09/15/progress-at-least-some-towards-a-global-pull-incentive/ Mon, 15 Sep 2025 10:11:57 +0000 https://amr.solutions/?p=18655

Dear All (and with thanks to Kevin Outterson for co-authoring this newsletter),

In the wake of the Sep 2024 UNGA HLM on AMR (UN General Assembly High-Level Meeting on AMR), it has been encouraging to see the continued discussion around Push and Pull incentives for antibacterial innovation and access (see the AMR.Solutions post-UNGA webpage for links). With strong progress on Pull incentives in the UK (19 Aug 2024 newsletter) and Italy (30 Jul 2025 newsletter), the  particular hope now is that other high-income countries will implement complementary approaches to Pull that are appropriate for each territory.

And with that desire, the question of “what is each country’s fair share?” becomes important. Previous work (see Kevin’s 1 Nov 2021 newsletter) estimated that a global Pull of $310m/year x 10 years (2019 US dollars, USD) would create an effective incentive (lower and higher bounds on the estimate were $220m/yr to $480m/yr). Note also that it is expected that the Pull awards come only from high(er) income countries.

In an effort to analyze progress to date, Kevin and colleagues offer this new open-access publication:

  • Goh M, McEnany M, Freeman R, Newton M, Kesselheim AS, Outterson K. Bridging the fair share gap for antibacterial innovation: an observational analysis of antibacterial revenues in the G7 and EU27. eClinicalMedicine. 2025;88:103485, doi: 10.1016/j.eclinm.2025.103485.

In brief, the manuscript (i) updates the global fair share targets to 2024 USD, (ii) estimates actual by-country (G7 and EU27) revenue for two key representative antibiotics (cefiderocol and ceftazidime-avibactam) for 2015-2024, (iii) estimates by-country gaps, and (iv) puts into context the required costs to meet fair share goals. Let’s take a look!

The authors start by updating the fair share targets to 2024 USD. Using a standard adjustment for inflation, we have the table just below. Note that the only adjustment made to the prior modeling was to correct for inflation between 2019 and 2024:

Table 3 from Goh et al: Fair share revenue targets

So, how did the countries do? The next figure in our tour shows cumulative revenue to date vs. mid-point target by country. Most of the countries have a gap between actual sales and fair share target (e.g., $58m and $104m for Canada for the two drugs … see the very first pair of columns). And, the EU27 as a whole (the next pair of columns) has a $800m gap. But, note that 3 instances are marked where sales revenue have now achieved fair share target (Italy for both test drugs, US for ceftazidime-avibactam) where the target is already met:


And this leads, in turn, to a pair of fascinating new analyses. First, the fact that we have 3 instances where revenue has achieved the by-country fair share target (just through needed use) says that meeting the target is not always, or consistently, an extra cost at the country level. Neither Italy nor the US had a delinked pull in place during this time period (PASTEUR has not yet passed in the US; Italy only recently kicked off their Pull incentive). 

Thus the cost to governments is not the US $363m revenue guarantee per year, but instead that number reduced by actual revenues. We urgently need the Pull incentive because revenues for important new antibiotics are both too little and too late to sustain commercialization (more in this below). However, this does not mean that revenues are zero.

Digging a bit more deeply on this point, the table just below takes a look in detail at how much each country would have needed to add as top-up to reach fair share had a Pull incentive started when the product was approved in that country. Where there are no numbers, the top-up would have been zero … and one such spot is marked:

From Goh et al., Table showing total top-up needed by year

Shown in the table is the total top-up per year for the two drugs. This is the difference between sales revenue and the mid-point target for that country per year.

In reading the table, it is instructive to see how some countries would need to provide little (France) or no (US, Italy) at times. But, also note that question of timing. In its first 3 years on the market (red circle), sales revenue for ceftazidime-avibactam in the US was very small and thus a total top up of $219 would have been needed. But as sales revenue increased, only $25m would have been needed over the next 7 years. This is the problem of too little, too late … small companies cannot survive those early years without the support of a Pull incentive.


Second, there is the bigger question of whether or not a global Pull of $310m/yr x 10 years is fair in an overall context. We’ve looked at this before in terms of DALYs (disability-adjusted life years, an estimate of lives saved and reduced morbidity, see the 29 Apr 2024 newsletter (“R&D Implications: Global Burden of Disease is 28% Infectious!”), and as well in purely financial terms in the 29 Nov 2022 and 8 Dec 2022 newsletters (“Impact of PASTEUR: 9.9m lives saved, ROI of 125:1” and “Lives saved + ROI of PASTEUR-like Pull in Canada, UK, EU, Japan!”). But, is there another way to put this in context? Is it really over the top?

To answer that question, the authors estimated how an antibiotic would rank in global revenue vs. all the other drugs sold in all other categories if the antibiotic had 100% of a mid-range global Pull incentive (that is, $310m/yr x 10 years). Here we go:

Goh Figure 3, ranking of antibiotic with mid-range pull

It will likely take you a moment to find that tiny green box representing that antibiotic: it would be #230 in the global ranking for revenue!


Wow … that’s a powerful story! It really helps us see that the needed Pull is not an amount that is unreasonable in context. And, the power of the revenue guarantee by a Pull mechanism is very thoughtfully summarized by the authors:

  • “Revenue guarantees would therefore most help support new antibiotics in the early years following market introduction.
  • “While the top-up cost to governments will be lower than the revenue targets, for the small biotech companies responsible for most antibacterial innovation, this top-up is important as it sets a delinked floor for revenues, enabling investment to bring qualifying drugs to market and support commercialization and access in the years after launch.
  • “Companies incur significant expenses to launch drugs in new countries; predictable revenue guarantees can support timely registration and access.”


It is also noteworthy that Pull incentives do not require the same structure in all countries. As the authors note “Progress in the UK and Italy demonstrates that meeting fair share targets are achievable within different national contexts.”

Inspiring and encouraging! With thanks to the UK and Italy for blazing a trail, it’s now time to see (further) progress in Europe (20 Jun 2025 newsletter, “Pull incentives in Europe: Next legislative steps”), Australia (21 Aug 2025 newsletter, “Australia calls for Subscription (‘Netflix’) models: Report and podcast”), Canada (8 Sep 2023 newsletter, “Canada says, ‘Let’s pull together!’ in a major new report”), Japan (22 Aug 2023 newsletter, “MHLW plan to pilot Pull incentives in Japan: Further details”), and the US (25 Sep 2024 newsletter, “26 Sep 2024 is a day of virtual advocacy: #PassPASTEUR”).

All best wishes, John & Kevin

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.

Kevin Outterson, JD, Professor of Law, Boston University & Executive Director, CARB-X (these views are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of CARB-X or any of its funders) @koutterson

John’s Top Recurring Meetings
Virtual meetings are easy to attend, but regular attendance at annual in-person events is the key to building your network and gaining deeper insight. My personal favorites for such in-person meetings are below. Of particular value for developers, the small meeting format of BEAM’s AMR Conference (March) and GAMRIC (September-October; formerly, the ESCMID-ASM conference series) creates excellent global networking. IDWeek (October) and ECCMID (April) are much larger meetings but also provide opportunities for networking with a substantial, focused audience via their Pipeline sessions. Hope to see you there!

  • 1-3 Oct 2025 GAMRIC, the Global AMR Innovators Conference (London, UK). Formerly the ESCMID-ASM Joint Conference on Drug Development for AMR, this meeting series is now in its 10th year and is being continued under the joint sponsorship of CARB-X, ESCMID, BEAM Alliance, GARDP, LifeArc, Boston University, and AMR.Solutions. The ongoing series will continue the successful format of prior meetings with a single-track meeting and substantial networking time (go here to see details of the outstanding 2024 meeting).
    • Registration is now open and the preliminary agenda can be found at that same link (https://www.gamric.org/). The meeting will be limited to approximately 300 attendees, so please be sure to register promptly to avoid disappointment!
  • 19-22 Oct 2025 (Georgia, USA): IDWeek 2025, the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Go here to register. For those who would like a substantial opportunity to present a product to a large audience (see also adjacent note about ESCMID), note the call for applications to present at an IDWeek Pipeline Session; go here to submit an application for your compound or diagnostic.
  • 3-4 Mar 2026 (Basel, Switzerland): The 10th AMR Conference. Sponsored by the BEAM Alliance, the 9th AMR Conference has just concluded and it’s again been an excellent meeting! Please mark your calendar for next year. You can’t register yet, but details will appear here! 
  • 17-21 April 2026 (Munich, Germany): ESCMID Global 2026, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. You can’t register yet, but you can go here for details on the outstanding 2025 meeting. For those who would like a substantial opportunity to present a product to a large audience (see also adjacent note about IDWeek), I know that the meeting schedule will again include Pipeline Monday; go here to see details from 2025.

  Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:

  • 15-19 Sep 2025 (virtual): US CDC-sponsored the 9th Annual Fungal Disease Awareness Week (FDAW). Daily themed events include “Think Fungus” on 15 Sep, “Fungi are everywhere” on 16 Sep, and “Fungal diseases and drug resistance (19 Sep). Signup for the Mycotic Diseases Branch newsletter to stay updated.
  • 1-3 Oct 2025 GAMRIC, the Global AMR Innovators Conference (London, UK; formerly the ESCMID-ASM Joint Conference on Drug Development for AMR). See list of Top Recurring meetings, above..
  • 11-19 Oct 2025 (Annecy, France, residential in-person program): ICARe (Interdisciplinary Course on Antibiotics and Resistance) … and 2025 will be the 9th year for this program. Patrice Courvalin orchestrates content with the support of an all-star scientific committee and faculty. The resulting soup-to-nuts training covers all aspects of antimicrobials, is very intense, and routinely gets rave reviews! Seating is limited, so mark your calendars now if you are interested. Applications are being accepted from 20 Mar to 21 Jun 2025 — go here for more details.
  • 17-20 Sep 2025 (Porto, PT): 14th International Meeting on Microbial Epidemiological Markers (IMMEM XIV). Go here for details.
  • 9-13 Nov 2025 (Portland, OR, USA): ASM Conference on Biofilms. Go here for details and to register.
  • 18-24 Nov 2025 (global, multiple locations): World Antibiotic Awareness Week (WAAW) is convened annually on 18-24 Nov by WHO with national events (e.g., CDC’s US Antibiotic Awareness Week (USAAW); ECDC’s 18 Nov European Antibiotic Awareness Day) occurring around the globe. Details will follow as events become visible.
  • 19-22 Oct 2025 (Georgia, USA): IDWeek 2025. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • 29-31 Oct 2025 (Bengalaru, India): ASM Global Research Symposium on the One Health Approach to Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), hosted in partnership with the Centre for Infectious Disease Research (CIDR) at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). Go here for details and to register.
  • 28-30 Jan 2026 (Las Vegas, NV, USA): IDSA and ASM have announced a new US-based meeting series entitled IAMRI (Interdisciplinary Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance and Innovation) and described as a “forum for collaboration and exploration around the latest advances in antimicrobial drug discovery and development.” You can’t register yet (the website says registration will open September 2025) but you go here for the program and to submit an abstract (deadline for abstracts is 1 Oct 2025).
  • [NEW] 4-5 Feb 2026 (virtual, 8a-noon GMT on both days): Antimicrobial Chemotherapy Conference 2026, sponsored by BSAC and GARDP. Registration here: acc-conference.com. Abstracts are welcomed and can be submitted here; abstract deadline is Friday, 14 November 2025, 17:00 GMT.
  • 3-4 Mar 2026 (Basel, Switzerland): The 10th AMR Conference sponsored by the BEAM Alliance. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • 8-13 Mar 2026 (Renaissance Tuscany Il Ciocco, Italy): 2026 Gordon Research Conference (GRC) entitled “Antibacterials of Tomorrow to Combat the Global Threat of Antimicrobial Resistance.” A Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) will be held the weekend before (7-8 Mar) for young doctoral and post-doctoral researchers. Space for the GRS and the GRC is limited; for details and to apply, go here for the GRC and here for the GRS.
  • 17-21 April 2026 (Munich, Germany): ESCMID Global 2026, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. See Recurring Meetings list, above.
  • 4-8 June 2026 (Washington, DC): ASM Microbe, the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. The meeting format is evolving and next year will combine 3 meetings (ASM Health, ASM Applied and Environmental Microbiology, and ASM Mechanism Discovery) into one event. Go here for details.

Self-paced courses, online training materials, and other reference materials:

Current funding opportunities

  • NNF (Novo Nordisk Foundation) have announced their “Challenge Programme 2026 – Unravelling the Pathways of Human Invasive Fungal Diseases. The call seeks applications from EU-centered consortia (global partners are possible) for research in 4 areas: (i) fungal virulence factors, (ii) host-pathogen interactions, (iii) mechanisms of anti-fungal resistance, and (iv) fungal disease markers. Applications are due by 8 Oct 2025. Go here for details. 
  • ENABLE-2 has continuously open calls for both its Hit-to-Lead program as well as its Hit Identification/Validation incubator. Applicants must be academics and non-profits in Europe due to restrictions from the funders. Applications are evaluated in cycles … see the website for details on current timing for reviews. 
  • CARB-X will have two calls during 2025 that span two areas: (i) Small molecules for Gram-negatives (the focus is on Pseudomonas aeruginosa) and (ii) Diagnostics for typhoid (the focus is diagnosis of acute infections in 60 minutes or less). See this 26 Feb 2025 newsletter for a discussion of the call and go here for the CARB-X webpage on the call. The first cycle is now closed (it ran16-30 April 2025); the 2nd round will be open 1-12 Dec 2025.
  • BARDA’s long-running BAA (Broad Agency Announcement) for medical countermeasures (MCMs) for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats, pandemic influenza, and emerging infectious diseases is now BAA-23-100-SOL-00004 and offers support for both antibacterial and antifungal agents (as well as antivirals, antitoxins, diagnostics, and more). Note especially these Areas of Interest: Area 3.1 (MDR Bacteria and Biothreat Pathogens), Area 3.2 (MDR Fungal Infections), and Area 7.2 (Antibiotic Resistance Diagnostics for Priority Bacterial Pathogens). Although prior BAAs used a rolling cycle of 4 deadlines/year, the updated BAA released 26 Sep 2023 has a 5-year application period that ends 25 Sep 2028 and is open to applicants regardless of location: BARDA seeks the best science from anywhere in the world! See also this newsletter for further comments on the BAA and its areas of interest.
  • HERA Invest was launched August 2023 with €100 million to support innovative EU-based SMEs in the early and late phases of clinical trials. Part of the InvestEU program supporting sustainable investment, innovation, and job creation in Europe, HERA Invest is open for application to companies developing medical countermeasures that address one of the following cross-border health threats: (i) Pathogens with pandemic or epidemic potential, (ii) Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) threats originating from accidental or deliberate release, and (iii) Antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Non-dilutive venture loans covering up to 50% of investment costs are available. A closing date is not posted insofar as I can see — applications are accepted on a rolling basis; go here for more details.
  • The AMR Action Fund is open on an ongoing basis 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 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/).
  • These things aren’t sources of funds but would help you develop funding applications
    • 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.
    • Antimicrobial Resistance Research and Innovation in Australia is an actively updated summary that covers Australia’s AMR research and patent landscape. It is provided via collaboration between The Lens (an ambitious project seeking to discover, analyse, and map global innovation knowledge) and CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research). Lots to explore here!
    • Diagnostic developers would find valuable guidance in this 6-part series on in vitro diagnostic (IVD) development. Sponsored by CARB-X, C-CAMP, and FIND, it pulls together real-life insights into a succinct set of tutorials.
  • 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).
]]> #AMRSOS! AMR could worsen, killing 39m during 2025-2050 https://amr.solutions/2024/09/17/amrsos-amr-could-worsen-killing-39m-during-2025-2050/ Tue, 17 Sep 2024 20:58:40 +0000 https://amr.solutions/?p=16861

Dear All,

Just in time for the United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting on AMR, the team behind the global burden of disease (GBD) estimates which we’ve discussed previously has released an excellent new report! Here are the links you need:

  1. The new report: “Global burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance 1990–2021: a systematic analysis with forecasts to 2050” by the GBD 2021 Antimicrobial Resistance Collaborators, Lancet, 16 Sep 2024, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(24)01867-1.
  2. The accompanying editorial: “Global burden of antimicrobial resistance and forecasts to 2050” by Samuel Kariuki, Lancet 16 Sep 2024, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(24)01885-3.
  3. 20 Jan 2022 newsletter: “#AMRSOS! GRAM report: “at least 1.27m deaths/year directly attributable to AMR” discussing the first big paper on the GBD for AMR.
  4. 29 Apr 2024 newsletter: “R&D Implications: Global Burden of Disease is 28% Infectious!” discussing a further analysis showing that 28% of GBD is infectious and14% is bacterial!
  5. And there is a lot of media coverage: Washington Post and CNN, just to name a few.
  6. Addendum: See also the 31 Aug 2026 newsletter entitled “#AMRSOS! The (human) cost of AMR: Data from 19 countries in Asia” for data from a prospective cohort study that documents the substantial impact of AMR in Asia.

This is a substantial paper and you’ll need to make time to digest it. If the GBD analyses are new to you, I suggest you start with #3 above as that newsletter explains the ideas behind the GBD project.

In brief, this new paper analyzes trends from 1990 to 2021 and then projects trends through 2050. Numerically, the punch line is in the title of this newsletter: AMR-attributable deaths will globally total 39m across the period 2025-2050. But, I think a better summary of this is visual. Let’s first consider a global view of AMR mortality rates in 1990 (above) and 2050 (below), with darker red = more deaths:

We can then consider pairwise images that zoom in on selected regions (1990 above, 2050 below): Caribbean and Central America, Persian Gulf, Balkan Peninsula, Southeast Asia, West Africa, and Northern Europe:

Key messages are:

  • Globally, AMR-attributable mortality will increase if we do not take action.
    • The rate of increase is uneven!
    • Mortality is decreasing in children under 5 (yes, decreasing)
    • But mortality is increasing in the older population, with an 80% increase forecast in those over age 70!
    • This follows from the huge impact of vaccination and WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) on infection rates in children vs. the increasing complexity of a growing older population.
  • The net effect is “increasing burden from AMR in the coming decades, with an estimated 69·6% increase in global deaths attributable to AMR and 67·0% increase in deaths associated with AMR between 2022 and 2050.“
  • Sadly, this paper concludes “that without additional measures we will fail to hit the 10% reduction in AMR mortality proposed in the 10-20-30 by 2030 target.”
    • This is reference to the 10-20-30 target proposed in May of this year … see the superb series of papers discussed in 23 May 2024 newsletter entitled “Lancet: 10-20-30 targets to address AMR by 2030“

Lest you think that you are safe because you might not currently be in one of the dark red countries on the map–think again. In our globally connected world, no one is safe until we all are safe. Sobering … but indeed exactly the kind of evidence that precipitates action! 

If you want to read a bit more deeply, look below my signature for an annotated version of the Findings from the abstract. Extraordinary stuff!

With thanks to the team behind the amazing Global Burden of Disease project and also with thanks to all of you are acting to avert this looming disaster, –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.


Annotated elements from the abstract of the paper:

Methods: We estimated all-age and age-specific deaths and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) attributable to and associated with bacterial AMR for 22 pathogens, 84 pathogen–drug combinations, and 11 infectious syndromes in 204 countries and territories from 1990 to 2021.

Findings

  • “In 2021, we estimated 4·71 million (95% UI 4·23–5·19) deaths were associated with bacterial AMR, including 1·14 million (1·00–1·28) deaths attributable to bacterial AMR.
    • “Trends in AMR mortality over the past 31 years varied substantially by age and location.
  • “From 1990 to 2021, deaths from AMR decreased by more than 50% among children younger than 5 years yet increased by over 80% for adults 70 years and older.
    • “AMR mortality decreased for children younger than 5 years in all super-regions,
      • Why? From the body of the paper:
      • “Much of this reduction is due to a decrease in drug-resistant S pneumoniae and in pathogens commonly spread through faecal–oral transmission (eg, Salmonella, Shigella, and enteropathogenic or enterotoxigenic E coli).”
      • “This decline coincides with widespread vaccination efforts and improved access to WASH and serves as an important reminder to the global health community and policy makers that infection prevention might be a highly effective intervention in reducing AMR burden.”
    • … “whereas AMR mortality in people 5 years and older increased in all super-regions.
      • !!! Why is this? From the body of the paper:
      • “First, the rising AMR and sepsis mortality in older adults has been masked by traditional global health metrics.
      • “Second, interventions that are effective in younger age groups, such as vaccines, might be less effective in older adults.
      • “Third, older adults are more likely to have adverse effects from specific antimicrobials; as resistance increases, the use of more toxic second-line and third-line treatment options is necessitated, which might not be tolerated in older populations.
      • “Fourth, adults are more likely to have comorbidities that lead to immunodeficiencies and increase the risk of opportunistic infections.”
    • “For both deaths associated with and deaths attributable to AMR, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus increased the most globally (from 261 000 associated deaths [95% UI 150 000–372 000] and 57 200 attributable deaths [34 100–80 300] in 1990, to 550 000 associated deaths [500 000–600 000] and 130 000 attributable deaths [113 000–146 000] in 2021).
    • “Among Gram-negative bacteria, resistance to carbapenems increased more than any other antibiotic class, rising from 619 000 associated deaths (405 000–834 000) in 1990, to 1·03 million associated deaths (909 000–1·16 million) in 2021, and from 127 000 attributable deaths (82 100–171 000) in 1990, to 216 000 (168 000–264 000) attributable deaths in 2021.
    • “There was a notable decrease in non-COVID-related infectious disease in 2020 and 2021.
  • Going forward: “Our forecasts show that an estimated 1·91 million (1·56–2·26) deaths attributable to AMR and 8·22 million (6·85–9·65) deaths associated with AMR could occur globally in 2050.
    • “Super-regions with the highest all-age AMR mortality rate in 2050 are forecasted to be south Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean.
    • “Increases in deaths attributable to AMR will be largest among those 70 years and older (65·9% [61·2–69·8] of all-age deaths attributable to AMR in 2050).
    • “In stark contrast to the strong increase in number of deaths due to AMR of 69·6% (51·5–89·2) from 2022 to 2050, the number of DALYs showed a much smaller increase of 9·4% (–6·9 to 29·0) to 46·5 million (37·7 to 57·3) in 2050.
    • From the body of the paper: “Cumulatively from 2025 to 2050, our reference scenario forecasts 39·1 million (33·0–46·0) deaths attributable to AMR”
    • “Globally and in every super-region, AMR deaths in children younger than 5 years are decreasing, most pronounced in absolute numbers in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia.
    • “For deaths of people 70 years and older, we forecasted an increase from 2022 to 2050 in every super-region.
  • And if take action: “Under the better care scenario, across all age groups,
    • “92·0 million deaths (82·8–102·0) could be cumulatively averted between 2025 and 2050, through better care of severe infections and improved access to antibiotics, and
    • … “under the Gram-negative drug scenario, 11·1 million AMR deaths (9·08–13·2) could be averted through the development of a Gram-negative drug pipeline to prevent AMR deaths.

Current funding opportunities

  • ENABLE-2 has continuously open calls for both its Hit-to-Lead program as well as its Hit Identification/Validation incubator. Applicants must be academics and non-profits in Europe due to restrictions from the funders. Applications are evaluated in cycles … see the website for details on current timing for reviews. 
  • CARB-X has open calls at intervals that span four areas: (i) Therapeutics for Gram-Negatives, (ii) Prevention for Invasive Disease, (iii) Diagnostics for Neonatal Sepsis, and (iv) Proof-Of-Concept for Diagnosing Lower-Respiratory-Tract Infections. See this 6 Mar 2024 newsletter for a discussion of the call and go here for the CARB-X webpage on the call. There are multiple opportunities to submit — see the CARB-X webpage for details.
  • BARDA’s long-running BAA (Broad Agency Announcement) for medical countermeasures (MCMs) for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats, pandemic influenza, and emerging infectious diseases is now BAA-23-100-SOL-00004 and offers support for both antibacterial and antifungal agents (as well as antivirals, antitoxins, diagnostics, and more). Note especially these Areas of Interest: Area 3.1 (MDR Bacteria and Biothreat Pathogens), Area 3.2 (MDR Fungal Infections), and Area 7.2 (Antibiotic Resistance Diagnostics for Priority Bacterial Pathogens). Although prior BAAs used a rolling cycle of 4 deadlines/year, the updated BAA released 26 Sep 2023 has a 5-year application period that ends 25 Sep 2028 and is open to applicants regardless of location: BARDA seeks the best science from anywhere in the world! See also this newsletter for further comments on the BAA and its areas of interest.
  • HERA Invest was launched August 2023 with €100 million to support innovative EU-based SMEs in the early and late phases of clinical trials. Part of the InvestEU program supporting sustainable investment, innovation, and job creation in Europe, HERA Invest is open for application to companies developing medical countermeasures that address one of the following cross-border health threats: (i) Pathogens with pandemic or epidemic potential, (ii) Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) threats originating from accidental or deliberate release, and (iii) Antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Non-dilutive venture loans covering up to 50% of investment costs are available. A closing date is not posted insofar as I can see — applications are accepted on a rolling basis; go here for more details.
  • The AMR Action Fund is open on an ongoing basis 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 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/).
  • These things aren’t sources of funds but would help you develop funding applications
    • 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.
    • Diagnostic developers would find valuable guidance in this 6-part series on in vitro diagnostic (IVD) development. Sponsored by CARB-X, C-CAMP, and FIND, it pulls together real-life insights into a succinct set of tutorials.
  • 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).

John’s Top Recurring Meetings
Virtual meetings are easy to attend, but regular attendance at annual in-person events is the key to building your network and gaining deeper insight. My personal favorites for such in-person meetings are below. Of particular value for developers are the AMR Conference and the ASM-ESCMID conference. Hope to see you there!

  • 17-20 Sep 2024 (Porto, Portugal; virtual attendance is possible): ASM/ESCMID Joint Conference on Drug Development to Meet the Challenge of Antimicrobial Resistance. Go here to register!
  • 16-20 Oct 2024 (Los Angeles, USA): IDWeek 2024, the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Go here for details.
  • 25-26 February 2025 (Basel, Switzerland): The 9th AMR Conference 2025. Go here to register! 
  • 11-15 April 2025 (Vienna, Austria): ESCMID Global 2025, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Go here for details. 

  Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:

  • [ONGOING – DON’T MISS IT] 28 Aug to 28 Sep (Off-Broadway, New York City, the Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre): Lifeline, the musical story of Sir Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin. Previously entitled The Mould that Changed the World, the musical is a two-time Edinburgh Festival Fringe sell-out (2018 and 2022) and has toured to London, Glasgow, Atlanta and Washington DC (2022). This 5-week run in NYC is timed to be in support of the High-Level Meeting on AMR (HLM AMR) during UNGA 2024. Go here for a blurb and here to book your tickets!
  • [ONGOING] 17-20 Sep 2024 (Porto, Portugal; virtual attendance is possible): ASM/ESCMID Joint Conference on Drug Development to Meet the Challenge of Antimicrobial Resistance. See Recurring Meetings list, above.
  • 19 Sep 2024 (virtual, 10-11.30a CEST / 18.00–19.30 AEST): GARDP-sponsored webinar entitled “An introduction to antibiotic research and development (R&D).” Go here to register.
  • 24 Sep 2024 (in person, 7.45-10a ET, New York City): Breakfast meeting entitled “Advancing Together: Securing the Global AMR Agenda by Harnessing the Collective Strength of Multi-Sector Partnerships”, sponsored by bioMèrieux, The Wellcome Trust, The American Society of Microbiology, and the Republic of Malawi. This occurs two days before the 26 Sep 2024 UNGA HLM on AMR. Go here to register.
  • 16-20 Oct 2024 (Los Angeles, USA): IDWeek 2024, the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. See Recurring Meetings list, above. 
  • 16 Oct 2024 (virtual and in-person, 10a-1p ET): FDA’s Rare Disease Innovation Hub, in collaboration with the Reagan-Udall Foundation will discuss how the recently announced Rare Disease Innovation Hub can engage and prioritize its work. This may seem somewhat remote, but could this have implications for rare infections? Hmm! Attend if you can! Go here for the meeting’s webpage.
  • 19-27 Oct 2024 (Annecy, France, residential in-person program): ICARe (Interdisciplinary Course on Antibiotics and Resistance). Now in its 8th year, Patrice Courvalin directs the program with the support of an all-star scientific committee and faculty. The resulting soup-to-nuts training covers all aspects of antimicrobials, is very intense, and routinely gets rave reviews! Seating is limited, so mark your calendars now if you are interested. Applications open in March 2024 — go here for more details.
  • [NEW — short timeline on registration] 22-24 Oct 2024 (Belgrade, Serbia): Ecraid/ESCMID postgraduate course “Better methods for clinical studies in infectious diseases and clinical microbiology”. Go here to register by 29 Sep 2024.
  • 4-5 Dec 2024 (in person, Washington, DC): “Fungal Dx 2024: Fungal Diagnostics in Clinical Practice” is a 2-day in-person workshop organized by ISHAM‘s Fungal Diagnostics Working Group. The program and registration links are available at https://fungaldx.com/; the agenda is comprehensive and features an all-star global list of speakers.
  • 11-15 April 2025 (Vienna, Austria): ESCMID Global 2025, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. See Recurring Meetings list, above.
]]> Pull mechanisms: Private capital can multiply Subscription (Netflix) and TEV models! https://amr.solutions/2022/03/26/pull-mechanisms-private-capital-can-multiply-subscription-netflix-and-tev-models/ Sat, 26 Mar 2022 09:38:58 +0000 https://13.43.35.2/?p=7295

Dear All: Three recent papers bring together an instructive perspective on Pull incentives for the #FireExtinguishersOfMedicine. The first two papers survey the available tools and conclude that subscription models (e.g. “Netflix”) and transferable exclusivity vouchers (TEVs) are the key paths forward. The 3rd paper is new (and big) news: it shows that the existence of such Pull rewards would unlock significant private capital investment and thereby multiply the effect of the Pull reward! Here we go:

  • Boston Consulting Group: The Case for a Subscription Model for Tackling Antimicrobial Resistance. This paper surveys a variety of Pull models (see figure below my signature) and concludes that all models have their strengths, Subscriptions models (e.g., the “Netflix” concept that is basis of the PASTEUR Act in the US) have the broadest applicability.
  • Duke Margolis Center for Healthcare Policy: Design of a Transferable Exclusivity Voucher Program. Transferable Exclusivity Vouchers (TEVs) have long also tantalized because of their simplicity — the antibiotic is rewarded via the patent on another agent (see figure below my signature). This alternative to Subscription models may be just the thing for some territories.
  • Milken Institute: Models for Financing Antibiotic Development to Address Antimicrobial Resistance. The Milken Institute sought ways to involve private capital in AMR via a series of workshops during late 2021. Via this process, they have identified two ways that Pull rewards would cause private capital to invest, hence multiplying the impact of the Pull reward (see figures below my signature):
    • A blended capital fund offering financing adjusted to the changing capital needs of an antibiotic as it moves through development.
    • An “antibiotic bond,” in which committed subscription payments would provide the capital to pay back investors. 

It’s exciting to have this expanded thinking. It confirms the findings of DRIVE-AB that (i) there are relatively few viable incentives tools (subscription models such as PASTEUR [Netflix] or TEVs consistently float to the top) and (ii) private capital will step in to multiply the effect of Pull incentives such as PASTEUR or a TEV. The idea of the potential for a multiplier effect from private capital is a novel observation and is something we need to emphasize in our messages. As an example, the Milken paper estimates a 2-3x multiplier effect for their blended capital fund concept .

Yow! All this really depends on Pull incentives such as PASTEUR … but it really could work!

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.

—
Key figure from the BCG report:


Key figure from the Duke Margolis paper:

Key figures from the Milken Institute paper: Blended Capital and Pooled Loan models:

Current funding opportunities (most current list is here):

  • BARDA is seeking proposals under Project BioShield to support late stage development, regulatory approval and potential procurement of antibiotics against biothreat pathogens, Yersinia pestis, Francisella tularensis, and Burkholderia pseudomallei.  Small businesses can apply until April 6, 2022. Go here for the details.
  • JPIAMR’s 14th call is now open. Entitled “Disrupting drug resistance using innovative design”, the call seeks consortia that would seek to “improve the treatment of bacterial and fungal infections (including co-infection) and/or the prevention of the emergence/spread of resistance in humans, animals or plants through the improvement of the efficacy, specificity, delivery, combinations and/or repurposing of drugs and plant protection agents.” Bacteria, fungi, human health, animal health, and plant health are all in scope! Pre-proposals are due 8 Mar 2022; full proposals would be due 5 July 2022. Go here for details.
  • 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/).
  • CARB-X recently announced that their existing resources will be reserved to fund their existing portfolio (more than 80 total awards, and counting, as they include contracting from prior rounds). New rounds from CARB-X will occur only after new funding is obtained in 2021.
  • 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):

  • 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!
  • 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! 
  • [NEW] 5 Apr 2022 (virtual): WHO-sponsored webinar, “Understanding options for World Bank financing to address AMR.” This webinar is part of the WHO Global Webinar Series to support implementation of national action plans on antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Go here to register. 
  • 7-8 Apr 2022 (Basel): The 6th edition of the annual AMR conference sponsored by the BEAM Alliance, CARB-X, the Novo REPAIR Impact Fund, the IMI Accelerator, and the European Biotechnology Network. Go here for the hold-the-date page and a way to be kept informed about the meeting. 
  • 23-26 Apr 2022 (Lisbon): 32nd European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID). Go here for details.
  • 9-13 May 2022 (Athens and online): 40th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases, 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.
  • 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 more: https://www.icarecourse.org/
  • 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.
]]> PASTEUR (v2.0) reintroduced in the US Congress! https://amr.solutions/2026/02/12/pasteur-v2-0-reintroduced-in-the-us-congress/ Thu, 12 Feb 2026 15:49:58 +0000 https://amr.solutions/?p=25181

Dear All,

I’m delighted to be able to say that PASTEUR 2026 was (re)introduced into the US Congress this week! It’s an improved version relative to the version introduced into the prior 3 sessions of the US Congress (see below for discussion of that), so I think we can safely call it “PASTEUR v2.0” as well as by its more official name of PASTEUR 2026. Here are the links you need:

  • PASTEUR 2026 (v2.0)
    • On congress.gov, it is “H.R.7352 – To amend the Public Health Service Act to establish a program to develop innovative antimicrobial drugs targeting the most challenging pathogens and most threatening infections, and for other purposes.”
    • But, you can’t (yet) download from congress.gov … instead, use this text (.pdf) of the newly introduced version
    • A section-by-section analysis of the Act
  • Press releases and commentary
  • Background and context on the ideas behind PASTEUR as well as its potential value
    • 16 June 2021 newsletter (“PASTEUR Act re-introduced and levels up antimicrobial economics for strong innovation!”). This newsletter gives a good tour of the ideas behind PASTEUR v1.0.
    • 29 Nov 2022 newsletter (“Impact of PASTEUR: 9.9m lives saved, ROI of 125:1”). This is a deep discussion of the value of PASTEUR to the US and the rest of the world. The data discussed are as close to a slam dunk economic analysis as you will ever see.
    • Newsletters on 28 Feb 2024 and 19 Mar 2024: This pair of newsletters discusses the way(s) that economists think about the problem of AMR. There are great discussions here of the key concepts of market failure and the “Tragedy of the (Antibiotic) Commons.”

So what’s in the new Act? Importantly, the key elements are unchanged: PASTEUR creates a volume-delinked payment model (a Pull incentive) under which:

  • The federal government would sign a subscription-style contract with pharmaceutical companies that develop critically needed new antibiotics and antifungals AND
  • The companies would receive fixed annual payments from the government, ranging from $75 million to $300 million per year, based on measures such as innovation, contribution to patient care, and public health benefits.

What’s changed relative to prior version? In addition to some process simplification, the big change is clarity on how antibiotics would be scored for purposes of the contract mechanism. Rather than the relatively vague language in PASTEUR 1.0, the new Act specifies the creation of a consistent, transparent, scoring methodology based on a set of defined elements. Not surprisingly, these look a lot like the criteria in the UK’s Pull incentive in which value comes from measures of innovation (novelty, etc.), patient benefit (better outcomes, less toxicity, etc.), and public health benefit. See below my signature for the full text of the proposed scoring methodology.

Overall, it’s felt that these changes have retained the best parts of PASTEUR v1.0 while creating a v2.0 that will be more likely to move forward through Congress. 

Woot, woot! Oh, so very exciting! Many thanks here to the bipartisan team of Reps. Earl L. “Buddy” Carter (R-GA), Scott Peters (D-CA), Nick Langworthy (R-NY), Mike Levin (D-CA), and Mike Carey (R-OH) who introduced this bill! 

And, also, we all owe a great debt of thanks to the AMR stakeholders who have been working to update PASTEUR based on feedback received from policymakers. This is largely the same group who sponsored a day of advocacy for an earlier effort to advance PASTEUR (15 Sep 2023 newsletter: “How the sausage is made: A day of advocacy for PASTEUR”) … and to them I can only say “Well done! THANK YOU!”

Such great news! I’m sure there will be ways for all us to pitch in to support the Act at at various points along the way. Stay tuned!

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.

Text from PASTEUR 2026 on the numerical scoring methodology:
“METHODOLOGY: An eligible antimicrobial shall receive a score, calculated by points awarded based on criteria developed in consultation with the Advisory Group established under section 399PP-1 within the following three categories, with a weighting assigned to each criterion established under such categories and a greater number of points resulting in a higher score:

  1. CATEGORY I.- The eligible antimicrobial’s major contributions to patient care, including-
    1. improving clinical outcomes for patients with multi-drug-resistant infections;
    2. improved dose frequency;
    3. reduced toxicity;
    4. reductions in adverse events; and
    5. benefits from the eligible antimicrobial’s route of administration, especially through oral administration or more than one administration method.
  2. CATEGORY II.- The innovative characteristics of the eligible antimicrobial, including-
    1. being a first-approved antimicrobial drug that has the potential to address, or has the evidence of addressing, unmet medical needs for the treatment of a serious or life-threatening infection, or, to a lesser extent, second and third drugs that treat such infection;
    2. containing no active moiety (as defined in section 314.3 of title 21, Code of Federal Regulations (or any successor regulations)) that has been approved in any other application under section 505(b) of the Federal Food, Drug) and Cosmetic Act and containing no active ingredient licensed in any other biological product license application under section 35l(a) ofthis Act;
    3. being a member of a new class of drugs with a novel target or novel mode of action that are distinctly different from the target or mode of any antimicrobial drug approved under such section 505(b) or licensed under such section 351(a); and
    4. addressing a multi-drug resistant infection through a novel chemical scaffold or mode of action.
  3. CATEGORY III.- The benefit of the eligible antimicrobial to health systems and public health, including-
    1. not being affected by cross-resistance to one or more antimicrobials approved under such section 505(b) or licensed under such section 351(a);
    2. manufacturing capabilities within the United States;
    3. improved product stability and storage;
    4. increased activity against resistance mechanisms; and
    5. reduction of the economic or population burden of antimicrobial resistance in the United States.”

John’s Top Recurring Meetings
Virtual meetings are easy to attend, but regular attendance at annual in-person events is the key to building your network and gaining deeper insight. My personal favorites for such in-person meetings are below. Of particular value for developers, the small meeting format of BEAM’s AMR Conference (March) and GAMRIC (September-October; formerly, the ESCMID-ASM conference series) creates excellent global networking. IDWeek (October) and ECCMID (April) are much larger meetings but also provide opportunities for networking with a substantial, focused audience via their Pipeline sessions. Hope to see you there!

  • 3-4 Mar 2026 (Basel, Switzerland): The 10th AMR Conference. Sponsored by the BEAM Alliance, the 9th AMR Conference was an excellent meeting! A draft program has been posted and registration is now open. Please plan to attend! 
  • 17-21 April 2026 (Munich, Germany): ESCMID Global 2026, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. You can go here to register and view the preliminary program; the abstract submission window for 2026 will run 15 October to 26 Nov 2025. For those who would like a substantial opportunity to present a product to a large audience (see also adjacent note about IDWeek), I know that the meeting schedule will again include Pipeline Monday.
  • 22-24 Sep 2026 (Lisbon, Portugal): The 2nd GAMRIC, the Global AMR Innovators Conference (London, UK). Formerly the ESCMID-ASM (or ASM-ESCMID depending on location) Joint Conference on Drug Development for AMR, 2026 will be the 11th year for this series that is now under the joint sponsorship of CARB-X, ESCMID, BEAM Alliance, GARDP, LifeArc, Boston University, and AMR.Solutions. The ongoing series employs the successful format of prior meetings with a single-track meeting and substantial networking time. The 2025 meeting was a sell-out success! A written summary of the meeting is here and the video from the sessions is now available here. Registration will open March 2026; the abstract submission window will be 10-31 March 2026.
  • 21-24 Oct 2026 (Washington, DC, USA): IDWeek 2026, the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Details are not yet available but I would expect the program to continue to provide a substantial opportunity to present a product to a large audience (see also adjacent note about ESCMID) as well as opportunities to present at an IDWeek Pipeline Session.

 

  Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:

  • 18-20 Feb 2026 (Sydney, Australia, in person): The “AMR 2026 Summit”, hosted by the Fleming Initiative and Australia’s Science Agency, CSIRO. This event (website) will spotlight evidence-informed One Health approaches, practical solutions to implementation barriers, and strategies for public engagement, education, and advocacy. Space is limited, so (and sort of like applying to attend a Gordon Conference), please register your interest to attend here.
  • [NEW] 19 Feb 2026 (virtual, 9.30-11a ET): REVIVE-sponsored webinar entitled “Innovating for impact: Tackling chronic lung infections in cystic fibrosis through new antimicrobials.” Go here to register. If this webinar interests you, you might also want to review the discussions at FDA’s 2020 workshop on inhaled therapies that is discussed in the 18 Oct 2020 newsletter (“FDA workshop: Insights on inhaled antifungals and antibacterials”).
  • 3-4 Mar 2026 (Basel, Switzerland): The 10th AMR Conference sponsored by the BEAM Alliance. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • 8-13 Mar 2026 (Renaissance Tuscany Il Ciocco, Italy): 2026 Gordon Research Conference (GRC) entitled “Antibacterials of Tomorrow to Combat the Global Threat of Antimicrobial Resistance.” A Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) will be held the weekend before (7-8 Mar) for young doctoral and post-doctoral researchers. Space for the GRS and the GRC is limited; for details and to apply, go here for the GRC and here for the GRS.
  • 17-21 April 2026 (Munich, Germany): ESCMID Global 2026, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. See Recurring Meetings list, above.
  • 4-8 June 2026 (Washington, DC): ASM Microbe, the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. The meeting format is evolving and next year will combine 3 meetings (ASM Health, ASM Applied and Environmental Microbiology, and ASM Mechanism Discovery) into one event. Go here for details.
  • 22-24 Sep 2026 GAMRIC (Lisbon, Portugal), the Global AMR Innovators Conference (London, UK; formerly the ESCMID-ASM Joint Conference on Drug Development for AMR). See list of Top Recurring meetings, above..
  • 10-18 Oct 2026 (Annecy, France, residential in-person program): ICARe (Interdisciplinary Course on Antibiotics and Resistance) … and 2026 will be the 10th year for this program. Patrice Courvalin orchestrates content with the support of an all-star scientific committee and faculty. The resulting soup-to-nuts training covers all aspects of antimicrobials, is very intense, and routinely gets rave reviews! Registration for 2026 will not open for some time; go here for more details and put a reminder in your calendar to check back in the Spring if you are interested.
  • 21-24 Oct 2026 (Washington, DC, USA): IDWeek 2026. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • [Updates to abstract and registration details] 10-13 November 2026 (Madrid, Spain): The International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID) has announced its 21st International Congress on Infectious Diseases (ICID). Register and view the preliminary program here (Early bird closes 30 July 2026); abstract deadline is 28 April 2026.

Self-paced courses, online training materials, and other reference materials:

Current funding opportunities

  • FDA have issued two AMR-related RFPs: One for interpretive criteria for in vitro activity vs. Candida auris and one for ideas on using large public datasets to generate control data for invasive fungal infections. The submission deadline for both is 24 Feb 2026. See the 5 Feb 2026 newsletter for details (“FDA RFPs: Susceptibility breakpoints and external controls for invasive fungal infections”).
  • The Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027 includes at least 3 calls of interest within its Cluster 1 — see the list below.  The application window starts 10 Feb 2026 and closes on 16 Apr 2026. See also the 12 Dec 2025 newsletter about the call. Note as well that there calls for agents to prevent and/or treat viral infections.
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2027-01-DISEASE-08: Development of innovative antimicrobials against pathogens resistant to antimicrobials
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2027-02-IND-02: Portable point-of-care diagnostics
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01-DISEASE-03:Advancing research on the prevention, diagnosis, and management of post-infection long-term conditions. 
  • ENABLE-2 has continuously open calls for both its Hit-to-Lead program as well as its Hit Identification/Validation incubator. Applicants must be academics and non-profits in Europe due to restrictions from the funders. Applications are evaluated in cycles … see the website for details on current timing for reviews. 
  • BARDA’s long-running BAA (Broad Agency Announcement) for medical countermeasures (MCMs) for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats, pandemic influenza, and emerging infectious diseases is now BAA-23-100-SOL-00004 and offers support for both antibacterial and antifungal agents (as well as antivirals, antitoxins, diagnostics, and more). Note especially these Areas of Interest: Area 3.1 (MDR Bacteria and Biothreat Pathogens), Area 3.2 (MDR Fungal Infections), and Area 7.2 (Antibiotic Resistance Diagnostics for Priority Bacterial Pathogens). Although prior BAAs used a rolling cycle of 4 deadlines/year, the updated BAA released 26 Sep 2023 has a 5-year application period that ends 25 Sep 2028 and is open to applicants regardless of location: BARDA seeks the best science from anywhere in the world! See also this newsletter for further comments on the BAA and its areas of interest.
  • HERA Invest was launched August 2023 with €100 million to support innovative EU-based SMEs in the early and late phases of clinical trials. Part of the InvestEU program supporting sustainable investment, innovation, and job creation in Europe, HERA Invest is open for application to companies developing medical countermeasures that address one of the following cross-border health threats: (i) Pathogens with pandemic or epidemic potential, (ii) Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) threats originating from accidental or deliberate release, and (iii) Antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Non-dilutive venture loans covering up to 50% of investment costs are available. A closing date is not posted insofar as I can see — applications are accepted on a rolling basis; go here for more details.
  • The AMR Action Fund is open on an ongoing basis 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 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/).
  • CARB-X will have calls during April 2026 and 4Q 2026. The team have announced that at least one of the themes of both calls will be novel chemistry scaffolds.
  • These things aren’t sources of funds but would help you develop funding applications
    • 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. See also the 7 Feb 2026 newsletter (“The global funding pipeline, 2017-2023: A review”) about an excellent deep dive by the Hub team into patterns of funding over time.
    • Antimicrobial Resistance Research and Innovation in Australia is an actively updated summary that covers Australia’s AMR research and patent landscape. It is provided via collaboration between The Lens (an ambitious project seeking to discover, analyse, and map global innovation knowledge) and CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research). Lots to explore here!
    • Diagnostic developers would find valuable guidance in this 6-part series on in vitro diagnostic (IVD) development. Sponsored by CARB-X, C-CAMP, and FIND, it pulls together real-life insights into a succinct set of tutorials.
  • 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).
]]> UK Pull (“Netflix-like”) pilot: STEDI-based QALY value of new antibiotics implies societal value > 10m GBP/year! https://amr.solutions/2022/04/11/uk-pull-netflix-pilot-qaly-value-of-new-antibiotics-implies-societal-value-10m-gbp-year/ Tue, 12 Apr 2022 01:40:21 +0000 https://13.43.35.2/?p=7408

Dear All (and with thanks to Kevin Outterson for co-authoring this newsletter),

We’ve written before about the UK’s “Netflix” pilot antibiotic Pull incentive in which England leads the way on showing how it plans to provide its fair share of a global antibacterial Pull incentive (for background on Pull incentives, see this superb 5-minute video explainer).

In an exciting update, NICE has now published the draft guidance for the first two pilot drugs: cefiderocol and ceftazidime-avibactam! Both documents are well worth your time to download and read. In addition, NICE have published this commentary and there’s a also good summary posted by FT.

You may remember that these two drugs were chosen competitively to receive subscriptions of up to £10M each every year for up to 10 years, pending the outcome of economic assessments and a Committee review calculating the societal value of these fire extinguishers of medicine using the STEDI principles (Spectrum, Transmission, Enablement, Diversity, Insurance; for a refresher on STEDI, see this newsletter or this YouTube explainer).

The initial numbers are now in and while there remains work to do, it’s also a moment to celebrate: We don’t (yet) have a specific $/£ value but NICE has stated each drug has a QALY-based value to the NHS in England: for ceftazidime-avibactam it is 530 QALYs/year x 10 years; for cefiderocol, the value is 970 QALYs/year x 10 years. As NICE typically uses £20,000 and £30,000 per QALY as a threshold for the idea of good value (that is, things that cost more than this per QALY are too expensive), a simple scaling of these QALYs/year x £20k/QALY = £11-19M/year. We can see that contract negotiations need to be completed to determine the actual £ figure for each drug (and the actual award will be limited by the £10m/year cap in the pilot program), but it’s evident that the math shows that major new antibiotics have a real social value that can be estimated and should be rewarded!

Pop a cork and raise a glass: we are witnessing the successful maiden voyage of the first antibacterial pull incentive! When the rest of the G7 and (at least some of the) G20 follow suit to bring the global Pull reward into the target range of ~$3b for a substantial new antibiotic, we will have a sustainable solution. Thank you to the entire Team UK! This is what leadership looks like! Woot, woot! 

Note that the economists didn’t quite have all of the data they wanted to calculate some of the STEDI values of antibiotics, so the UK government committee for the project stepped up and made some reasonable estimates. This was precisely the sort of courage needed in the face of some uncertainty, and shines a light on the need to continue to improve both data and methods.

And, that’s why we run Pilot projects: to work out the kinks and to prepare the way to do better next time. Who wants to go next? The PASTEUR ACT in the US is poised to happen in 2022 … as an early sign, the 2023 US budget recently proposed by the White House includes a proposal that “… would provide annual payments from a contract valued between $750 million and $3 billion to the developers of newly approved antimicrobial drugs” — this is, of course, exactly the PASTEUR concept! With Canada, Europe, and Japan also taking steps, we are seeing the momentum build.

it’s just stunning to contemplate how far we’ve come since the 17 Sep 2009 conference hosted by Sweden on Innovative Incentives for Effective Antibacterials. IDSA had sounded the Bad Bugs, No Drugs call in 2004, but there was really zero momentum on global solutions until the meeting in 2009 triggered a cascading series of actions by multiple stakeholders: New Drugs for Bad Bugs (ND4BB)! CARB-X! DRIVE-AB! UK AMR Review! Novo REPAIR Impact Fund! GARDP! The Global AMR R&D Hub! The IACG on AMR! The $1b AMR Action Fund!

And now we see the creation of the first true Pull incentive that would make it possible for new #FireExtinguishersOfMedicine to reach registration, stay on the market, and be available to the many who will desperately need them! As stated in the NICE commentary: “The NHS will now use its commercial power to secure deals that will enable NHS patients to benefit from these treatments, delivering on its Long Term Plan commitment and paving the way for a pipeline of future treatment options.”

Our world is beset with many vexing problems; the broken economics of antibiotics is a problem we can truly start to fix in 2022. 

We’ll say it again: Woot, woot! WELL DONE, TEAM UK!

All best wishes, Kevin and John

Kevin Outterson, JD, Professor of Law, Boston University & Executive Director, CARB-X (these views are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of CARB-X or any of its funders) @koutterson

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):

  • JPIAMR’s 14th call is now open. Entitled “Disrupting drug resistance using innovative design”, the call seeks consortia that would seek to “improve the treatment of bacterial and fungal infections (including co-infection) and/or the prevention of the emergence/spread of resistance in humans, animals or plants through the improvement of the efficacy, specificity, delivery, combinations and/or repurposing of drugs and plant protection agents.” Bacteria, fungi, human health, animal health, and plant health are all in scope! Pre-proposals are due 8 Mar 2022; full proposals would be due 5 July 2022. Go here for details.
  • 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/).
  • CARB-X recently announced that their existing resources will be reserved to fund their existing portfolio (more than 80 total awards, and counting, as they include contracting from prior rounds). New rounds from CARB-X will occur only after new funding is obtained in 2021.
  • 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):

  • 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!
  • 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! 
  • 23-26 Apr 2022 (Lisbon): 32nd European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID). Go here for details.
  • 9-13 May 2022 (Athens and online): 40th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases, Go here for details.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 20-24 Sep 2022 (New Delhi): 21st Congress of the International Society for Human and Animal Mycology (ISHAM). Go here for details.
  • [NEW] 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 more: https://www.icarecourse.org/
  • 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.
  • 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.
]]> Antibiotic supply chains: Challenges & Opportunities https://amr.solutions/2022/05/04/antibiotic-supply-chains-challenges-opportunities/ Thu, 05 May 2022 00:20:58 +0000 https://13.43.35.2/?p=7561

Dear All,

In a report entitled Understanding the Antibiotic Manufacturing Ecosystem: A view of global supply chains, pressure points, and implications for antimicrobial resistance response, the Boston Consulting Group and Wellcome Trust have examined at length the questions of (i) how the #FireExtinguishersOfMedicine are made and (ii) how they can be made with the least impact on the environment.

To see all this in context, there are are two parallel threads to consider. First, COVID has taught us about the fragile nature of supply chains in general. Antibiotics definitely have fragile supply chains and you can get a flavor of this by scanning this 2018 article in Forbes, this 2021 paper in BMJ Global Health, and FDA’s Drug Shortage webpage. Second, manufacturing discharges can themselves drive antibiotic resistance — ATMF’s 2021 review is a good summary of the problem. The need for responsible approaches to manufacturing was also clearly called out in proposals to establish environmental discharge from the AMR Industry Alliance. Notably, the AMR Industry Alliance (AMRIA) will publish an industry standard next month which, together with an independent certification scheme (expected in early 2023), could provide a mechanism to drive adoption of risk based, cost effective controls to minimize antibiotic emissions across the global supply chain and provide means by which manufacturers can give assurance of responsibly made antibiotics.

Addendum: the AMRIA published its Antibiotic Manufacturing Standard on 14 June 2022. See https://www.amrindustryalliance.org/shared-goals/common-antibiotic-manufacturing-framework/ for details, including research-based Predicted No-Effect Concentrations (PNECs). In collaboration with BSI (British Standards Institution), there is also an industry certification scheme. See also the 25 Sep 2023 newsletter for a further discussion of this scheme.

So, this new report analyzes the impact of possible environmental regulatory changes on antibiotic supply. The report starts from a very practical concern — it regulatory changes increase manufacturing costs, will manufacturing decline?

There are some excellent figures throughout the report but I wanted to share these two in particular. Production of antibiotics is not simple and, unfortunately, antibiotic discharge does happen. Note in particular (2nd figure) that most of the manufacturing happens in two of the most densely populated countries in the world:

In terms of the impact of environmental regulation to curb this issue, it really boils down to someone paying more and at what scale. If it is the developers, we all know how tough it is to just keep the lights on once you’ve made a new antibiotic. If it is the consumers, no one ever wants to pay more if they can help it. And, none of us will be happy if we break the supply chains for critical antibiotics! But how likely is this if new environmental regulation was introduced?

I encourage you to read the report yourself, but findings suggest environmental regulation can be compatible with strong antibiotic supply chains. However, policies should be developed in a supply chain-sensitive way and complimented with supportive measures for at-risk supply chains. The key being (no surprise!) to take a number of pragmatic steps in parallel. These include:

  • Evidence-based discharge limits
  • Standardized methods for monitoring discharge
  • Cost-efficient processes for meeting and monitoring compliance with the targets
  • Ambitious but feasible timelines for implementation
  • Consideration of the fragility of individual supply chains with an eye to ensuring that supply chains for critical antibiotics are not broken
  • International coordination on all the above, including actions by net-importers

The report suggests that the WHO and G7/G20 need to take the lead: global government action will be needed to change the way we develop and use antibiotics. Now is the time to include changing the way we manufacture them as part of this global effort!

Well done, BCG and Wellcome Trust! –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):

  • JPIAMR’s 14th call is now open. Entitled “Disrupting drug resistance using innovative design”, the call seeks consortia that would seek to “improve the treatment of bacterial and fungal infections (including co-infection) and/or the prevention of the emergence/spread of resistance in humans, animals or plants through the improvement of the efficacy, specificity, delivery, combinations and/or repurposing of drugs and plant protection agents.” Bacteria, fungi, human health, animal health, and plant health are all in scope! Pre-proposals are due 8 Mar 2022; full proposals would be due 5 July 2022. Go here for details.
  • 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/).
  • CARB-X recently announced that their existing resources will be reserved to fund their existing portfolio (more than 80 total awards, and counting, as they include contracting from prior rounds). New rounds from CARB-X will occur only after new funding is obtained in 2021.
  • 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):

  • 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!
  • 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! 
  • [NEW] 13 May 2022 (Strasbourg, France): AC21 Workshop: “Pre-clinical development of antimicrobial peptides”, with contributions from the AC21 member universities in Stellenbosch, South Africa, Minneapolis, USA, Freiburg, Germany and Strasbourg, France as well as from other institutions. Participation is free and open to non-member institutions but registration is required. Supported by Academic Consortium 21. Go here for details.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 20-24 Sep 2022 (New Delhi): 21st Congress of the International Society for Human and Animal Mycology (ISHAM). Go here for details.
  • [NEW] 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 more: https://www.icarecourse.org/
  • 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.
  • 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.
]]>