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: Recently announced is a new EU Joint Action on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) & Health-Care Associated Infections (HCAI). Its acronym is EU-JAMRAI and the website is https://eu-jamrai.eu/. Joint actions are a common tool for coordinating implementation activities across Europe. EU-JAMRAI actually started in September 2017 and will run for three years but it is really
Dear All: I hope your summer is going well! Below, three items of interest. See as well several updates to the future meetings list. First,Rep. McCarthy recently introduced the FORWARD (Finding Orphan-disease Remedies with Antifungal Research & Development) Act to the United States House. Seeking to support “endemic orphan fungal disease research, incentivize Valley Fever vaccine development, discover
Dear All: New things continue to appear at a furious pace! Here are 3 excellent opportunities to listen and learn. Even if you can’t be there in person, the first is a webinar and the other two are (in my experience) very likely to be webcast: On 26 June, there will be a webinar sponsored
Dear All: Also appearing today are two valuable opportunities to comment on key global strategy documents. I do hope each of you can make time to look at these materials and consider sending in your thoughts — it really does make a difference when central leadership groups hear from a broad array of stakeholders! First, EMA has
Dear All: Following hard on the heels of yesterday’s note about the 14 June 2018 Duke-Margolis workshop on development of non-traditional products, we now have a notice regarding a 21-22 Aug FDA workshop on that same topic! The meeting will be on FDA’s White Oak Campus from 8.30a-4.30p (21 Aug) and 8.30a-noon (22 Aug). From the notice: “The purpose
Dear All: Wow! It’s happened! As reported this morning in The Times and The Guardian among others, the UK will announce at Davos that it is committing to a 20-year vision and initial 5-year plan to combat AMR. The plan includes actions to reduce infection rates, to reduce antibiotic use, and most importantly for this audience to find a path to delinked
Dear All: Yes, I know that yesterday’s Scary/Scarier/Scariest newsletter about Achaogen was a downer. That note was as hard to write as I’m sure it was to read! I’ve received multiple comments and questions regarding the path forward and you can expect a follow-up note on this in the near future. For today, an initial way to act for
Dear All: Alan Carr (acarr@needhamco.com, Needham & Company, LLC) writes a superb investment-focused newsletter focused on the antibiotic sector. We all owe him a debt of thanks for his careful analyses. His most recent newsletter (link) is a soups-to-nuts tour that is required reading if you are working in this sector — he covers company status, development program
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