Dear All, Sadly, I must report that the 27th meeting of PACCARB (the US Presidential Advisory Council on Combatting Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria) planned for 28-29 Jan 2025 has been cancelled “as the new Administration considers its plan for managing federal policy and public communications.” This 22 Jan 2025 article in the New York Times provides additional details
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, 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, 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
Dear All (and with thanks to Stephan Harbarth for co-authoring this newsletter), A new review by Ursula Theuretzbacher and colleagues from GARDP provides an opportunity to (i) discuss the preclinical antibacterial pipeline (the new paper), (ii) remind you of a recent review of the Gram-negative clinical pipeline, and (iii) share an excellent Industry-level perspective on
Dear All, As you know, WHO have been steadfastly producing both priority pathogens lists (PPLs) and pipeline reviews. My current summaries of both are found at https://amr.solutions/pathogens-and-pipelines/. WHO began this process in 2017 with an initial focus antibacterial agents. To date, they have released multiple antibacterial pipeline reviews (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2023, see
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 (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