Dear All, In a marvelous series of tweets, Seema Verma (current Administrator of the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) today said the following (emphasis is mine): Not-so-fun fact of the day: Most classes of antibiotics prescribed to #Medicare beneficiaries were discovered long ago- before they were even born. #FactFriday #DYK Over time, pathogens have
Dear All: We had hints back in January that this was coming (see this post), but now it is really happening! In brief, UK’s NHS will test the world’s first subscription-style payment model in which payments delinked from volume are used to incentivise pharmaceutical companies to develop new drugs for resistant infections. Below my signature, I’ve
Aside: Please look closely at the forward calendar. In addition to two new webinars from GARDP’s REVIVE project, there is a meeting in Thailand in December that focuses on alternatives to antibiotics. I’m told that the program is primarily focused on veterinary and agricultural uses, but previous year’s attendees have found the discussion to have broad application
Dear All: OK … enough with bad news, at least for today. In today’s edition of XKCD (link), we learn about resistance to apples and the need to use good apple stewardship. Image reproduced with permission from https://xkcd.com/2161/ If you don’t read XKCD, you should! All best wishes, –jr John H. Rex, MD | Chief Medical
Dear All: The idea of using real-world evidence (RWE) as a way to support development of novel agents (including antibiotics!) has always intrigued. As you may recall, the 21st Century Cures Act (Cures Act) gave FDA a mandate to evaluate the potential use of RWE to support drug approval. There was a workshop on this on
Dear All: As you know, WHO produced a pipeline update with a cut-off date of 1 July 2018. It’s now published both as a manuscript (Theuretzbacher et al. Lancet ID 2018, link) and a set of summary tables (link). Team WHO would like to update this analysis with a cut-off date of 1 Aug 2019. They
Dear All:First, and with a closing date of 12 Sep 2019, Wellcome Trust is offering grants of up to GBP 750k for research investigating the impact of vaccines on antibiotic use and/or antimicrobial resistance (go here for details). The core goal of this funding scheme is to develop data that would support and inform vaccine decision-makers around the world as they
Dear All: The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF) has a standing list of funding opportunities (link), including an annual cycle to fund new therapeutics (link). CFF have now teamed up with CARB-X to host a live webinar on June 11, from 10:00am – 11:00am ET, to introduce their new Infection Research Initiative. There’s not much detail on this
Also note several new webinars in the forward meeting list! Dear All: NIAID currently has an open BAA (Broad Agency Announcement, HHS-NIH-NIAID-BAA2019-1, link), that calls for proposals across three research areas: Medical Countermeasures (MCMs), therapeutics for resistant bacteria, and vaccines for resistant bacteria. The deadline for Research Area 001 (MCMs) is still 20 May 2019, but the
Dear All: Rick Bright, Director of BARDA, posted an outstanding commentary (link) in Forbes on 10 May 2019 on the Achaogen story (for more background, see my prior Scary/Scarier/Scariest blogs #1 and #2). Here are three excerpts from his commentary: “Since 2010, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) has been a leader in the fight against