Something Different

Which came first: The drug or resistance to the drug?

Dear All, Although it seems entirely reasonable that the “Which came first?” chicken vs. egg riddle can be resolved in favor of the egg, a pair of papers in CID suggest that the answer to the parallel question of “drug vs. resistance to the drug” is changing in a way that is NOT in our favor!

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NIAID BAA – Biodefense focus / Fireside Chat on diagnostics and more

Dear All, We are swimming in Broad Agency Announcements aka BAAs! As a refresher, I recently shared a BAA from the CDC and one from BARDA — now we have another one from NIAID! There’s a strong biodefense angle here with lots of scope. Key details of each opportunity are as follows and I highly recommend you check

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Fireside Chat with AMR Action Fund CIO Martin Heidecker

Dear All, Ahead of World Antimicrobial Awareness Week, I sat down with AMR Action Fund Chief Investment Officer Martin Heidecker for a Fireside Chat. It was a fabulous conversation that covered everything from how the Fund’s investment process works to what it’s looking for in portfolio companies to broader investment trends in the AMR space.  As

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WHO 2020 clinical/preclinical pipeline review; Chat with WHO’s Peter Beyer

Dear All, WHO have today updated their 2019 clinical/preclinical pipeline review by releasing their 2020 analyses of both the clinical and pre-clinical antibacterial product pipelines (the new 2020 report, the press release). Their 2020 review of antibacterial products in Phase 1 and beyond covers both traditional (n = 43) and non-traditional products (n = 27)

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Stewardship & Access Guide from CARB-X, Wellcome, and partners: Analysis, video chat

Dear All, Novel antibacterial agents, vaccines, and diagnostics will do little if they are not widely available and used responsibly. CDDEP’s recent report entitled “The State of the World’s Antibiotics in 2021” makes this very clear: “… more people in LMICs (low-middle-income countries) die from lack of access to antimicrobials than from resistant infection.” Hence, CARB-X has

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Where’s the innovation? / Indian Priority Pathogen List / DTR video explainer

Dear All, Three things briefly this evening: First, the observation about the limited degree of innovation across products in Phases 1-3 in the recent newsletter about the Pew Pipeline review (only 1 in 4 are novel classes or novel mechanisms; none are potentially active against Gram-negative ESKAPE pathogens or WHO critical threat pathogens) generated queries along

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Discussing Details of ATMF’s 2021 AMR Benchmark Report!

Dear All, As you may remember, last fall I wrote a newsletter about ATMF’s 3rd update to the AMR Benchmark series. You are encouraged to read the report but in brief, the key messages are (i) the pipeline is small with most innovation coming from small biotech, (ii) stewardship and access planning are increasingly seen (but

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Starting 18 May: #SquashSuperbugs, Salt in My Soul (movie), and more!

Dear All, Building on last year’s call from PFID to declare 18 May the annual “Squash Superbugs Day of Action,” we have a flurry of activity beginning tomorrow. See the list just below and participate as much as you can — the hashtag #SquashSuperbugs is highly recommended for your social media posts! In addition to just

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RFP: Gender inequality in AMR (with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa)

Dear All, Continuing with the theme of socio-economic inequality and AMR that we discussed in prior newsletters (31 Jan 2022, “RFP: Support For Creating Antimicrobial Stewardship Centers Of Excellence” and 26 Oct 2021, “$50-100k Grants To Address Socioeconomic Outcome Disparities Due To AMR-Related Factors”), we today have an RFP on gender and AMR from the

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RFP: Climate-Sensitive Infectious Disease Modelling

Dear All, And now for something really different! With the recent GRAM report (20 Jan 2022 newsletter) showing that AMR is linked to more deaths that HIV or malaria (#AMRSOS! Andrew Jack and FT team have some great graphics for this … check them out!), we now have an absolutely fascinating call from Wellcome Trust for

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