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
Dear All: Two things of note this afternoon… First, the previously noted BARDA RFP to acquire biothreat antibiotics is now posted here with submissions accepted through 21 June 2019: “Under this RFP, BARDA plans to support the procurement of antibiotic(s), which will either be delivered to the ASPR/SNS or maintained as VMI, using Project BioShield (PBS) funds. “PBS funds will also support
Long note alert— apologies! Get a cup of coffee and settle in… Dear All: My 22 Apr 2019 note entitled Scary, Scarier, Scariest: Achaogen / FT editorial / CBS “60 Minutes” on AMR (link) caused a number of you to write expressing your related concerns and frustrations. Many thanks for those thoughts! A core theme in those
Aside: There is now an application link for the Mar 2020 Antibacterial R&D GRC meeting. See calendar listing below my signature! Dear All: CARB-X this week announced its 2019 calls for proposals (link). There are four application rounds: Non-traditional approaches: Funding Round 1 will be open for Expressions of Interest June 3 – June 10, 2019, 5 PM