24 Mar 2025 update: The call is live! It’s entitled “Development of a Rapid Point-of-care Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing Diagnostic Medical Device (HADEA/2025/CPN/0006).” 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. See the 24 Mar 2025 newsletter for a

Dear All, I wrote in the 19 Feb 2025 newsletter about HERA’s 13m EUR call for rapid point-of-care susceptibility devices. The call is now live! Title: Development of a Rapid Point-of-care Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing Diagnostic Medical Device (HADEA/2025/CPN/0006) Funding and Tenders portal link: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/tender-details/2e5c607e-6e55-4268-b99a-730c5db350b7-CN “This call for tenders aims to speed up the development of an in

Dear All, At BEAM’s AMR Conference in Basel, Team CARB-X have today announced their 2025 funding round. Key points: Two themes: (i) Direct-acting small molecule therapeutics for Gram-negatives (same as in 2024) and (ii) diagnostics for typhoid fever in low-resource settings. 23 Mar 2025 newsletter update: The TPPs for both themes have been released: Small

Dear All, Two quick updates this evening. First, you will recall that CARB-X have announced their initial 2025 funding round (26 Feb 2025 newsletter), with a call for applications for funding of work on (i) small molecules for Gram-negative infection and (ii) diagnostics for typhoid. In support of these calls, TPPs (target product profiles) for both

Dear All (and with thanks to Patricia Bradford for taking the lead on this newsletter): Today, this paper in Nature takes us on a trip to the land of unintended consequences: Turner, A.M., Li, L., Monk, I.R. et al. Rifaximin prophylaxis causes resistance to the last-resort antibiotic daptomycin. Nature 635, 969–977 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08095-4. A wonkish summary is found below

Dear All, I have learned that the Ineos Oxford Institute for Antimicrobial Research (IOI) has started a job search for a Director for the IOI. As background, IOI was created in 2021 with a  £100m donation from INEOS, one of the world’s largest manufacturing companies (Wikipedia; INEOS corporate website). Per their research webpage, IOI is

Dear All, EMA have recently posted a call for tenders under which they seek to “procure the services of research organizations to perform studies on the quality, safety and efficacy of human and veterinary medicines that would provide complementary evidence to support regulatory decision-making.” It’s not specifically about AMR (or, indeed, about any particular therapy

Dear All, The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is scheduled to meet 26-28 Feb 2025 (see links below my signature for deeper background on ACIP and how it advises on vaccine use). At least as of today, the ACIP meeting is scheduled to occur as planned: it has a full agenda that covers meningococcal vaccine, influenza

Dear All, If you are attending ESCMID Global in Vienna this year, mark your calendar for two major events. I hope to see you at both of them! First, there will be a Science Policy Forum afternoon (with networking reception) on Friday, 11 April 2025. Refined over the past two iterations of ECCMID, this event was

Dear All, A huge announcement today backed by the combined power of the Gates Foundation, Novo Nordisk, and Wellcome! I am going to quote liberally from their materials: Responding to the problem of AMR, “… the Novo Nordisk Foundation (NNF), Wellcome, and the Gates Foundation (GF) are jointly launching a new initiative, Gram-Negative Antibiotic Discovery