Dear All (wonkish note alert!), The recent newsletter on chemicals, drugs, and halicin (link, see also a follow-up newsletter here) generated significant discussion and new insights that I thought I would share in a follow-up newsletter. Our theme in Part 2 is “Trust, but verify!” Let’s start by considering comments on the newsletter. A number of
Dear All (and with thanks to Kevin Outterson for co-authoring this newsletter), The recent discussions of the NICE/NHS England pilot subscription model (detailed newsletter plus follow-up FAQ newsletter) and a new paper by Chantal Morel and colleagues on the idea of an Antibiotic Susceptibility Bonus (ASB, link) bring to the fore the question of how to value any given
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
Aside: If you’ve enjoyed the prior discussions of movies to inspire antibiotic R&D and very apropos given the theme of today’s newsletter, please check out the newly released 4-minute YouTube discussion of a scene from Master and Commander in which antibiotics could have saved a young man’s arm! Dear All (Wonkish alert! There’s a lot of
This newsletter has a follow-up here and here. Dear All, Today’s theme is a 3-part journey that could be subtitled “Many are called, but few are chosen,” or “It’s easy to kill bacteria — steam, fire, and bleach are consistently effective — but those aren’t drugs!” Our first stop is with a very old compound, bacitracin.
Dear All, The Duke-Margolis team hosted an excellent full-day workshop on 16 Jan 2020. Entitled “Exploring Opportunities to Reform Antimicrobial Payment and Post-Market Incentives” and chaired by Mark McClellan, the workshop’s outstanding cast of presenters and discussants provided a thorough discussion of both the need for new payment models and and the many ongoing activities focused
Dear All (long-ish, wonk-ish note alert … lots of details to absorb): This newsletter has a followup here. Sadly, Melinta Therapeutics, Inc. declared bankruptcy just before the end of 2019 (link). Formerly known as Rib-X (link), Melinta went public in 2017 through a reverse merger with Cempra (link); and via a series of deals had four
Dear All, I realized after sending the note about Melinta’s bankruptcy that I’d failed to be clear on what comes next for the company. (If you missed it, you can go here for a copy of that prior note.) In brief, a 27 Dec 2019 press release (link) states that the bankruptcy filing exchanges $140 million of secured claims
Dear All (long, wonkish note alert!): Today we have a 3-part discussion of cost and value with this summary 3-part message: Developing antibiotics is expensive, Not having antibiotics is even more expensive, and We have to solve this! First, what does it cost to bring a new antibiotic to market? To start us off, we
Dear All, As a coda to the two newsletters on Chemicals, Drugs, and Halicin (link and link), XKCD gets the final word: Image reproduced with permission from https://xkcd.com/1217/. And, you might want to review XKCD on the importance of good apple stewardship (link). With thanks to Natalie Ma for sharing this, All best wishes, –jr
