AMR.Solutions https://amr.solutions Antimicrobial Resistance Solutions with Dr. John H. Rex Mon, 17 Aug 2026 20:37:06 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://amr.solutions/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Fire-Extinguisher-icon-70x70.png AMR.Solutions https://amr.solutions 32 32 Milken webinar: Innovative financing models for antimicrobials https://amr.solutions/2026/08/17/milken-webinar-innovative-financing-models-for-antimicrobials/ Mon, 17 Aug 2026 20:33:50 +0000 https://amr.solutions/?p=25743

Note: I’ve been away on holiday (see the newsletter’s postscript) and so there are multiple new items in both the meetings calendar and the list of funding opportunities: TB! PACCARB! Funding for antifungals! Funding for R&D in India! Look closely! 

Dear All:

The AMR Multi-Stakeholder Partnership Platform (AMR MSPP) collaborated with the Milken Institute on 28 May 2026 to host a 90-minute discussion on innovative models for financing antimicrobial development. The speakers included representatives from CARB-X, the AMR Action Fund, the European Investment Bank, and Wellcome Trust. The broad-ranging conversation and perspectives reinforced the idea that no single instrument will solve the antimicrobial financing challenge. Funds, bonds, pull incentives, philanthropy, public mandates, and policy reform all have a role to play. Here are the links you need:



The themes here are not new but this webinar brings us an update on where we are with the thinking. As you’ll hear, both blended capital funds and AMR-focused bonds could help, but consistent, predictable pull mechanisms will be the key to long-term success.

Here we can also link to other discussions about why it makes sense to take action now as well as notes on ongoing action in Europe (Transferrable Exclusivity Vouchers) and in the US (PASTEUR Act):

  • 27 Mar 2026 newsletter reporting on a Panmure House (home of Adam Smith!) dialogue: “Antimicrobial Effectiveness: The strategic economic value of antibiotics” 
  • A 20 Jun 2025 newsletter entitled “Pull incentives in Europe: Next legislative steps” in which Deepali Patel (Director of International Policy at the AMR Action Fund) decodes the EU legislative process
  • A 21 Oct 2025 newsletter entitled “Technical Briefing on Pull Incentives for the European Parliament” in which Frédéric Peyrane (General Secretary, BEAM Alliance) and I take you through the details of a technical briefing on TEVs that was provided to the EP by BEAM Alliance, AMR Action Fund, and Novo Nordisk Foundation
  • A 12 Dec 2025 newsletter entitled “Pull incentives in Europe: TEVs to be included in legislative update” providing a further update on EU TEVs
    • I understand that they are progressing steadily
  • 12 Feb 2026 newsletter: “PASTEUR (v2.0) reintroduced in the US Congress!”
    • My understanding here is that passage in this session of congress is low probability but bipartisan momentum continues to build for the next session.


Yes, the process is slow … but we are going to get there! Pulling it all together, I really liked the summary that “the financing question is not only what a new antibiotic earns, but what its absence costs.” Indeed!

Many thanks to Team Milken for continuing to push on this problem!

All best wishes, –jr

John H. Rex, MD | Chief Medical Officer, F2G Ltd. | Operating Partner, Advent Life Sciences. Follow me on Twitter: @JohnRex_NewAbx. See past newsletters and subscribe for the future: https://amr.solutions/blog/. All opinions are my own.


PS: I can’t resist telling you about the sandcastles that we built this year. My favorite was our working sundial. It only lasted a day in its final form, but it was great fun! See below. The 6-foot obelisk at center-left was the gnomon and the small mounds at the bottom of the image are the time markers that run from far right (9AM) to left (6PM) with the the shadow on 6PM. As was inscribed on the obelisk, “Life is Short, Time is Swift, Much to be Done!” I hope you’ve also found some downtime for personal restoration this summer!

Sand sundial at 6pm

John’s Top Recurring Meetings
Virtual meetings are easy to attend, but regular attendance at annual in-person events is the key to building your network and gaining deeper insight. My personal favorites for such in-person meetings are below. Of particular value for developers, the small meeting format of BEAM’s AMR Conference (March) and GAMRIC (September-October; formerly, the ESCMID-ASM conference series) creates excellent global networking. IDWeek (October) and ECCMID (April) are much larger meetings but also provide opportunities for networking with a substantial, focused audience via their Pipeline sessions. Hope to see you there!

  • [Don’t miss it!] 22-24 Sep 2026 (Lisbon, Portugal): The 2nd GAMRIC, the Global AMR Innovators Conference (London, UK). Formerly the ESCMID-ASM (or ASM-ESCMID depending on location) Joint Conference on Drug Development for AMR, 2026 will be the 11th year for this series that is now under the joint sponsorship of CARB-X, ESCMID, BEAM Alliance, GARDP, LifeArc, Boston University, and AMR.Solutions. The ongoing series employs the successful format of prior meetings with a single-track meeting and substantial networking time. The 2025 meeting was a sell-out success: a written summary is here and the videos are here. Registration for the 2026 meeting is now open and the near-final program is here: in addition to a keynote lecture by Karen Bush on the threat to beta-lactams due to the emergence of PBP3 mutations, there are sessions on funding, access, program design for narrow-spectrum agents such as phage, development for pediatrics, and more. Registration is ongoing.
  • 21-24 Oct 2026 (Washington, DC, USA): IDWeek 2026, the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. I would expect the program to continue to provide a substantial opportunity to present a product to a large audience (see also adjacent note about ESCMID) as well as opportunities to present at an IDWeek Pipeline Session. Go here to register.
  • 23-24 Mar 2027 (Basel, Switzerland): The 10th AMR Conference (3-4 Mar 2026) is now over and offered a rich program that included a 10-year retrospective (we’ve done a lot!), regulatory updates, discussions of how to pursue development in China, and much more … in addition to being a superb opportunity for networking! I am told the session videos will soon be available on the conference website.
  • 9-13 April 2027 (Stockholm, Sweden): ESCMID Global 2027, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Details won’t be out for some months, but the website is here. I do know that the meeting schedule will again include a Science Policy Forum on Friday 9 April 2027 (see here the newsletter about the 2026 science policy forum) and all who are interested in Pull incentives and the antibiotic ecosystem should plan to be there!)..

  Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:

  • 31 Aug 2026 (virtual, 2-4p CET): WHO Dialogue with antibiotic developers on optimal evidence generation across the lifecycle. This 2-h session will be a virtual dialogue on the challenges such as fragmented regulatory requirements, trade-offs in clinical trial design, and gaps between evidence generated for regulatory approval and that needed to inform clinical use and stewardship. This session continues WHO’s efforts to use their convening power to shape the global conversation about how to improve the way(s) we advance new drugs from idea to the pharmacy. The agenda is not yet public but it’s clear that it will be a very interactive session: when you go here to register, you are asked about your experience(s) and have an opportunity to volunteer to present during the session.
  • [NEW] 3 Sep 2026 (2-3.30p CEST, virtual): GAP-f (Global Accelerator for Paediatric Formulations) is is hosting an industry dialogue on paediatric TB formulations, including long-acting formulations of TB drugs. Go here to register.
  • [NEW] 9-10 Sep 2026 (9a-5p ET in person or online: The Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria (PACCARB) will meet with a focus on microbiome science to support AMR prevention and drive novel interventions. Go here for additional details and to register. 
  • 22-24 Sep 2026 (Lisbon, Portugal): GAMRIC  the Global AMR Innovators Conference. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above..
  • 10-18 Oct 2026 (Annecy, France, residential in-person program): ICARe (Interdisciplinary Course on Antibiotics and Resistance) … and 2026 will be the 10th year for this program. Patrice Courvalin orchestrates content with the support of an all-star scientific committee and faculty. The resulting soup-to-nuts training covers all aspects of antimicrobials, is very intense, and routinely gets rave reviews! Registration for 2026 is now open and runs through June 21, 2026. Go here to register!
  • 21-24 Oct 2026 (Washington, DC, USA): IDWeek 2026. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • 10-13 November 2026 (Madrid, Spain): The International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID) has announced its 21st International Congress on Infectious Diseases (ICID). Register and view the preliminary program here.
  • [NEW] 16-18 Nov 2026 (FAO Headquarters, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00153 Rome, Italy): The 4th Annual Plenary Assembly of the AMR Multi-Stakeholder Partnership Platform, of the Quadripartite organizations (FAO, UNEP, WHO, and WOAH). “Organized ahead of the Fifth High-Level Ministerial Conference on AMR, the Plenary Assembly will bring together MSPP members and observers, partners and external stakeholders from across regions and One Health sectors. The Plenary Assembly will focus on moving from political commitments to practical delivery, with particular attention to supporting countries in implementing their AMR NAPs.” Go here for additional details to register.
  • 27-29 Jan 2027 (Las Vegas, USA): IMARI (Interdisciplinary Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance and Innovation) sponsored by IDSA and ASM. Abstract submissions are open through 19 Aug; registration and housing will open later this summer.
  • 23-24 Mar 2027 (Basel, Switzerland): The 11th AMR Conference sponsored by the BEAM Alliance. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • 9-13 April 2027 (Stockholm, Sweden): ESCMID Global 2026, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. See Recurring Meetings list, above.
  • ??? Mar 2028 (yes, that’s 2028, with location TBD): The 2028 Gordon Research Conference (GRC, https://www.grc.org/) entitled “Antibacterials of Tomorrow to Combat the Global Threat of Antimicrobial Resistance” and its related Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) for young doctoral and post-doctoral researchers will be sometime in March 2028. The organizers hope to coordinate dates and location with the 2028 BEAM-AMR meeting. Details to follow — mark your calendar!

Self-paced courses, online training materials, and other reference materials:

Current funding opportunities

  • Novo Nordisk Foundation (NNF) have an EUR 20m call for development of rapid, point-of-care diagnostics. See the 28 May 2026 newsletter for details; the deadline for expressions of interest is 7 Oct 2026.
  • [NEW] BARDA’s VITAL Hub has an open call for innovative antifungals. Non-dilutive funding of up to $250K is available to startups and university-backed projects working on “first-in-class, broad-spectrum antifungal drug candidates with novel mechanisms of action for the treatment of invasive fungal infections.” Candidates for the treatment of infections caused by Candida species, including Candida auris, and Aspergillus species, as well as rare molds, such as Mucorales are eligible. In-scope technologies include small molecules and peptide-based candidates. Neither vaccines nor antibody-based nor topical treatments will be considered for award under this solicitation (considered out of scope). Applications are due by 30 Oct 2026; go here for additional details.
  • CARB-X have had one funding round (8-22 April 2026); a further round is expected during 4Q 2026. There are 4 funding themes for these rounds as below.
    • Direct-acting therapeutics for infections caused by Gram-negative bacteria
    • Novel Chemistry for AMR Challenge – target-based therapeutics.
    • Non-vaccine approaches to prevent neonatal sepsis
    • Diagnostics for neonatal sepsis
  • [NEW] The India AMR Co-Development Programme (I-AMR-CDP) is a collaboration between Venus Remedies Limited, the Indian Government, GARDP, ADVANCE-ID that seeks to support antibacterial R&D based in India. I have limited insight into how collaborations would work; you can start with this LinkedIn post to learn more. 
  • ENABLE-2 has continuously open calls for both its Hit-to-Lead program as well as its Hit Identification/Validation incubator. Applicants must be academics and non-profits in Europe due to restrictions from the funders. Applications are evaluated in cycles … see the website for details on current timing for reviews. 
  • BARDA’s long-running BAA (Broad Agency Announcement) for medical countermeasures (MCMs) for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats, pandemic influenza, and emerging infectious diseases is now BAA-23-100-SOL-00004 and offers support for both antibacterial and antifungal agents (as well as antivirals, antitoxins, diagnostics, and more). Note especially these Areas of Interest: Area 3.1 (MDR Bacteria and Biothreat Pathogens), Area 3.2 (MDR Fungal Infections), and Area 7.2 (Antibiotic Resistance Diagnostics for Priority Bacterial Pathogens). Although prior BAAs used a rolling cycle of 4 deadlines/year, the updated BAA released 26 Sep 2023 has a 5-year application period that ends 25 Sep 2028 and is open to applicants regardless of location: BARDA seeks the best science from anywhere in the world! See also this newsletter for further comments on the BAA and its areas of interest.
  • HERA Invest was launched August 2023 with €100 million to support innovative EU-based SMEs in the early and late phases of clinical trials. Part of the InvestEU program supporting sustainable investment, innovation, and job creation in Europe, HERA Invest is open for application to companies developing medical countermeasures that address one of the following cross-border health threats: (i) Pathogens with pandemic or epidemic potential, (ii) Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) threats originating from accidental or deliberate release, and (iii) Antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Non-dilutive venture loans covering up to 50% of investment costs are available. A closing date is not posted insofar as I can see — applications are accepted on a rolling basis; go here for more details.
  • The AMR Action Fund is open on an ongoing basis to proposals for funding of Phase 2 / Phase 3 antibacterial therapeutics. Per its charter, the fund prioritizes investment in treatments that address a pathogen prioritized by the WHO, the CDC and/or other public health entities that: (i) are novel (e.g., absence of known cross-resistance, novel targets, new chemical classes, or new mechanisms of action); and/or (ii) have significant differentiated clinical utility (e.g., differentiated innovation that provides clinical value versus standard of care to prescribers and patients, such as safety/tolerability, oral formulation, different spectrum of activity); and (iii) reduce patient mortality. It is also expected that such agents would have the potential to strongly address the likely requirements for delinked Pull incentives such as the UK (NHS England) subscription pilot and the PASTEUR Act in the US. Submit queries to contact@amractionfund.com.
  • INCATE (Incubator for Antibacterial Therapies in Europe) is an early-stage funding vehicle supporting innovation vs. drug-resistant bacterial infections. The fund provides advice, community, and non-dilutive funding (€10k in Stage I and up to €250k in Stage II) to support early-stage ventures in creating the evidence and building the team needed to get next-level funding. Details and contacts on their website (https://www.incate.net/).
  • These things aren’t sources of funds but would help you develop funding applications
    • The Global AMR R&D Hub’s dynamic dashboard (link) summarizes the global clinical development pipeline, incentives for AMR R&D, and investors/investments in AMR R&D. See also the 7 Feb 2026 newsletter (“The global funding pipeline, 2017-2023: A review”) about an excellent deep dive by the Hub team into patterns of funding over time.
    • Antimicrobial Resistance Research and Innovation in Australia is an actively updated summary that covers Australia’s AMR research and patent landscape. It is provided via collaboration between The Lens (an ambitious project seeking to discover, analyse, and map global innovation knowledge) and CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research). Lots to explore here!
    • Diagnostic developers would find valuable guidance in this 6-part series on in vitro diagnostic (IVD) development. Sponsored by CARB-X, C-CAMP, and FIND, it pulls together real-life insights into a succinct set of tutorials.
  • In addition to the lists provided by the Global AMR R&D Hub, you might also be interested in my most current lists of R&D incentives (link) and priority pathogens (link).
]]> AWaRe antibiotic usage – Is 70% Access a good target? https://amr.solutions/2026/07/22/aware-antibiotic-usage-is-70-access-a-good-target/ Wed, 22 Jul 2026 12:06:56 +0000 https://amr.solutions/?p=25713

Dear All: An important and instructive analysis of optimal global antibiotic usage targets has just been published in Lancet Public Health. To follow the plot, here are the links you need:

  • The new paper: Cook et al.: “Benchmarking AWaRe: estimating optimal levels of AWaRe antibiotic use in 186 countries, territories and areas based on clinical infection and resistance burden”
  • Background on AWaRe: WHO 2025: “AWaRe classification of antibiotics for evaluation and monitoring of use”, WHO Reference number B09489.
    • AWaRe uses a 3-level scheme to classify >250 antibiotics as Access (first-line agents for most infections), Watch (for more resistant infections), or Reserve (for the most difficult infections).
    • Of the 42 antibiotics on the 2025 Essential Medicines List (EML), 21 (50%) are Access, 12 (29%) are Watch, and 9 (21%) are Reserve.
  • What is good usage? A 70% target for Access usage was endorsed at the 2024 UN General  Assembly High-Level Meeting on AMR (UNGA HLM AMR):
    • Go here to access the final declaration; jump to article 64 on page 10 where it says: “Ensure, by 2030, that the use of World Health Organization Access group antibiotics is expanded from the 2023 global target, and in that regard, taking into account national contexts, aim to achieve at least 70 per cent overall human antibiotic use globally, through investing in and strengthening stewardship programmes”
      • Importantly, the declaration proposed this as a general target. There was recognition that one size would NOT fit all but no guidance was given on deriving the best target for any given country.
    • For more on the UNGA HLM, see both the 1 Oct 2024 newsletter (“HLM on AMR at UNGA: The end of the beginning”) and the amr.solutions general resource page about that meeting.

 
So, you ask — why 70% usage as Access antibiotics? How do we know that such a target is appropriate? In fact, the 70% estimate was basically a finger-in-the-air guess – seemed in the ballpark, but it was recognized at the time that work was needed to explore this in detail;

  
—
With that as background, we come to the new paper. Here’s a brief outline of the research reported by Aislinn Cook and her colleagues:

  • The authors sought to use data from public datasets from the year 2019 (thus avoiding COVID-related distortions) to estimate an appropriate level of usage of Access antibiotics vs. Watch-Reserve for different countries.
  • The broad idea was to find a way to correlate Access-Watch-Reserve usage with what you’d expect to need to treat different infection and resistance burdens.
  • The authors took 2 approaches to finding a model:
    • A statistical model based on factors plausibly related to antibiotic need such as known infectious disease burden, local rates of resistance, and such.
    • A comparative benchmarking method in which countries (referred to in the paper as CTAs for “countries, territories, and areas”) were clustered by broad sociodemographic and healthcare characteristics and then benchmarked vs. each other.
  • The statistical model approach was a flop: variation in Access-Watch-Reserve usage was not readily explained by (i.e., not well correlated with) estimates from a collection of plausible covariates.
  • The benchmark-to-peers approach did, however, work (within limits) – and let’s look at what they found.

 
First, let’s consider the way that countries were clustered to allow for benchmarking for the analysis. As shown in this figure, the authors settled on 4 clusters that can be seen to broadly follow a pattern of moving from higher (Cluster 4) to lower (Cluster 1) income countries:

Cook 2026 - Four clusters of expected antibiotic usage

 
Within each cluster, they then estimate volumes of antibiotics needed for each country in terms of use of Access (green), Watch (yellow), or Reserve (Red) based on their infection and antibiotic resistance burden. There is a pattern here: Notice how Clusters 1 and 2 (the LIC/LMIC clusters) tend to both need more Access antibiotics but also more Watch antibiotics than are used in cluster 3 and 4 (the MIC/HIC clusters):

The y-axis is measure termed DID: Defined Daily Doses per 1,000 inhabitants per Day.
 
 
OK, so that’s estimated optimal usage — but how does that compare to current usage? Well, the next figure shows what happened when the authors compared actual usage (y-axis) with this theoretical optimal usage (x-axis). Alert: The x- and y-axis scales are not the same across figures … you need to find the line of identity shown by the dashed line on each figure to know whether any given dot is above or below the line.
 
With that in mind as you read the figures, we can see that for the countries with actual usage data:

  • Actual total usage exceeds optimal (black figure),
  • Actual Access usage (green figure) is scattered about the line of identity but actually tracks it pretty well,
  • Watch usage exceeds optimal (yellow figure, most dots are above the line), and
  • Reserve usage is inadequate (red figure, most dots are below the line)!
Cook 2026 - Actual vs. optimal usage of AWaRe abx by cluster

 
 
And now for the answer to the question about UNGA HLM target! Is 70% a good number? Remarkably, it does indeed turn out to have been a good guess! The actual best estimate from these data for the average % of global use that should be Access is 77% (95% CI, 71-83%) … so really close.
 
Now, it is also going to be true that the global average of ~70% will not be correct for all countries: countries would need to use local data to refine the estimate of the volume of antibiotics needed for their population and infection burden. But these country-specific estimates (as well as a sense of comparables from other countries) are a very powerful starting point!
 
Fascinating! The analysis by Cook et al. has some limitations due to assumptions that were necessarily needed in the modeling, but its great strength is that it exists and can become the foundation for further research and action.
 
A particular observation that has global importance is that Watch antibiotics are generally overused and Reserve are underused. This has very interesting implications for stewardship and access! It is unfortunate that anxiety about excess use (and probably cost concerns) keep new antibiotics from being used promptly. If you want to read further on this topic, consider these newsletters:

  • 19 Aug 2021: “Ex-US new antibiotic access: Multi-year delays, even in Europe!”
  • 7 Apr 2025: “UNSLAP: You reach for the antibiotic … and it’s not there!”
  • 24 Apr 2026: “DTR Gram-negative infections: Are new antibiotics making a difference?”

 
Well done to the authors — this fundamental research will be used for years to come.
 
All best wishes, –jr

John H. Rex, MD | Chief Medical Officer, F2G Ltd. | Operating Partner, Advent Life Sciences. Follow me on Twitter: @JohnRex_NewAbx. See past newsletters and subscribe for the future: https://amr.solutions/blog/. All opinions are my own.

John’s Top Recurring Meetings
Virtual meetings are easy to attend, but regular attendance at annual in-person events is the key to building your network and gaining deeper insight. My personal favorites for such in-person meetings are below. Of particular value for developers, the small meeting format of BEAM’s AMR Conference (March) and GAMRIC (September-October; formerly, the ESCMID-ASM conference series) creates excellent global networking. IDWeek (October) and ECCMID (April) are much larger meetings but also provide opportunities for networking with a substantial, focused audience via their Pipeline sessions. Hope to see you there!

  • [LATE-BREAKER ABSTRACTS close today] 22-24 Sep 2026 (Lisbon, Portugal): The 2nd GAMRIC, the Global AMR Innovators Conference (London, UK). Formerly the ESCMID-ASM (or ASM-ESCMID depending on location) Joint Conference on Drug Development for AMR, 2026 will be the 11th year for this series that is now under the joint sponsorship of CARB-X, ESCMID, BEAM Alliance, GARDP, LifeArc, Boston University, and AMR.Solutions. The ongoing series employs the successful format of prior meetings with a single-track meeting and substantial networking time. The 2025 meeting was a sell-out success: a written summary is here and the videos are here. Registration for the 2026 meeting is now open and the near-final program is here: in addition to a keynote lecture by Karen Bush on the threat to beta-lactams due to the emergence of PBP3 mutations, there are sessions on funding, access, program design for narrow-spectrum agents such as phage, development for pediatrics, and more. Registration is ongoing; the main abstract submission window is closed but late-breaker abstracts will be accepted 8-22 July 2026.
  • 21-24 Oct 2026 (Washington, DC, USA): IDWeek 2026, the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. I would expect the program to continue to provide a substantial opportunity to present a product to a large audience (see also adjacent note about ESCMID) as well as opportunities to present at an IDWeek Pipeline Session. Go here to register.
  • 23-24 Mar 2027 (Basel, Switzerland): The 10th AMR Conference (3-4 Mar 2026) is now over and offered a rich program that included a 10-year retrospective (we’ve done a lot!), regulatory updates, discussions of how to pursue development in China, and much more … in addition to being a superb opportunity for networking! I am told the session videos will soon be available on the conference website.
  • 9-13 April 2027 (Stockholm, Sweden): ESCMID Global 2027, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Details won’t be out for some months, but the website is here. I do know that the meeting schedule will again include a Science Policy Forum on Friday 9 April 2027 (see here the newsletter about the 2026 science policy forum) and all who are interested in Pull incentives and the antibiotic ecosystem should plan to be there!)..

  Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:

  • 22 July (virtual, 2-3.30p CET): The WHO AMR Department and the WHO GAP-r (Global Accelerator for Pediatric Formulations) are hosting an industry dialogue on pediatric and neonatal antibiotic development. The discussion will cover timing of pediatric and neonatal studies, extrapolation from adult data, feasibility of trial designs in children and neonates, and variability in regulatory expectations across jurisdictions. This topic is a long-standing source of frustration for developers (see the 7 Apr 2021 newsletter: “Developing antibiotics for children: There are no easy answers”) and I am glad to see WHO convening discussions on ways to facilitate pediatric work! Go here to register.
  • 27 July (virtual, 2-3.30p CET): Inaugural webinar of the WHO Bacteriophage Community of Practice (CoP), a global platform for knowledge exchange across the bacteriophage ecosystem. You can register for the webinar here. You will also want to join the CoP itself — for this, you need a free account WHO Integrated Health Services (IHS) Hub account; look for  “WHO AMR Community Exchange” and then for the “Bacteriophage group” under “Explore our groups.”
  • [NEW] 13-14 Aug 2026 (virtual and in person, Rockville, Maryland): NIAID-sponsored workshop entitled “Improving Clinical Outcomes for Mucormycosis and Other Rare Mold Infection.” The title is a good summary of the meeting. The focus on fungal infections but the implications of the discussion are potentially broader. How can we accumulate data on rare infections? How much data is enough? Are ideas such as Bayesian support for small pivotal datasets acceptable? Should be a good discussion! Go here to register.
  • [NEW] 31 Aug 2026 (virtual, 2-4p CET): WHO Dialogue with antibiotic developers on optimal evidence generation across the lifecycle. This 2-h session will be a virtual dialogue on the challenges such as fragmented regulatory requirements, trade-offs in clinical trial design, and gaps between evidence generated for regulatory approval and that needed to inform clinical use and stewardship. This session continues WHO’s efforts to use their convening power to shape the global conversation about how to improve the way(s) we advance new drugs from idea to the pharmacy. The agenda is not yet public but it’s clear that it will be a very interactive session: when you go here to register, you are asked about your experience(s) and have an opportunity to volunteer to present during the session.
  • 22-24 Sep 2026 (Lisbon, Portugal): GAMRIC  the Global AMR Innovators Conference. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above..
  • 10-18 Oct 2026 (Annecy, France, residential in-person program): ICARe (Interdisciplinary Course on Antibiotics and Resistance) … and 2026 will be the 10th year for this program. Patrice Courvalin orchestrates content with the support of an all-star scientific committee and faculty. The resulting soup-to-nuts training covers all aspects of antimicrobials, is very intense, and routinely gets rave reviews! Registration for 2026 is now open and runs through June 21, 2026. Go here to register!
  • 21-24 Oct 2026 (Washington, DC, USA): IDWeek 2026. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • [Early bird registration closes 30 July] 10-13 November 2026 (Madrid, Spain): The International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID) has announced its 21st International Congress on Infectious Diseases (ICID). Register and view the preliminary program here (Early bird closes 30 July 2026); abstract deadline is 28 April 2026.
  • 27-29 Jan 2027 (Las Vegas, USA): IMARI (Interdisciplinary Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance and Innovation) sponsored by IDSA and ASM. Abstract submissions are open through 19 Aug; registration and housing will open later this summer.
  • 23-24 Mar 2027 (Basel, Switzerland): The 11th AMR Conference sponsored by the BEAM Alliance. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • 9-13 April 2027 (Stockholm, Sweden): ESCMID Global 2026, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. See Recurring Meetings list, above.
  • ??? Mar 2028 (yes, that’s 2028, with location TBD): The 2028 Gordon Research Conference (GRC, https://www.grc.org/) entitled “Antibacterials of Tomorrow to Combat the Global Threat of Antimicrobial Resistance” and its related Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) for young doctoral and post-doctoral researchers will be sometime in March 2028. The organizers hope to coordinate dates and location with the 2028 BEAM-AMR meeting. Details to follow — mark your calendar!

Self-paced courses, online training materials, and other reference materials:

Current funding opportunities

  • Novo Nordisk Foundation (NNF) have an EUR 20m call for development of rapid, point-of-care diagnostics. See the 28 May 2026 newsletter for details; the deadline for expressions of interest is 7 Oct 2026.
  • CARB-X have had one funding round (8-22 April 2026); a further round is expected during 4Q 2026. There are 4 funding themes for these rounds as below.
    • Direct-acting therapeutics for infections caused by Gram-negative bacteria
    • Novel Chemistry for AMR Challenge – target-based therapeutics.
    • Non-vaccine approaches to prevent neonatal sepsis
    • Diagnostics for neonatal sepsis
  • The Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027 includes at least 3 calls of interest within its Cluster 1 — see the list below.  The application window starts 10 Feb 2026 and closes on 16 Apr 2026. See also the 12 Dec 2025 newsletter about the call. Note as well that there calls for agents to prevent and/or treat viral infections.
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2027-01-DISEASE-08: Development of innovative antimicrobials against pathogens resistant to antimicrobials
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2027-02-IND-02: Portable point-of-care diagnostics
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01-DISEASE-03:Advancing research on the prevention, diagnosis, and management of post-infection long-term conditions. 
  • ENABLE-2 has continuously open calls for both its Hit-to-Lead program as well as its Hit Identification/Validation incubator. Applicants must be academics and non-profits in Europe due to restrictions from the funders. Applications are evaluated in cycles … see the website for details on current timing for reviews. 
  • BARDA’s long-running BAA (Broad Agency Announcement) for medical countermeasures (MCMs) for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats, pandemic influenza, and emerging infectious diseases is now BAA-23-100-SOL-00004 and offers support for both antibacterial and antifungal agents (as well as antivirals, antitoxins, diagnostics, and more). Note especially these Areas of Interest: Area 3.1 (MDR Bacteria and Biothreat Pathogens), Area 3.2 (MDR Fungal Infections), and Area 7.2 (Antibiotic Resistance Diagnostics for Priority Bacterial Pathogens). Although prior BAAs used a rolling cycle of 4 deadlines/year, the updated BAA released 26 Sep 2023 has a 5-year application period that ends 25 Sep 2028 and is open to applicants regardless of location: BARDA seeks the best science from anywhere in the world! See also this newsletter for further comments on the BAA and its areas of interest.
  • HERA Invest was launched August 2023 with €100 million to support innovative EU-based SMEs in the early and late phases of clinical trials. Part of the InvestEU program supporting sustainable investment, innovation, and job creation in Europe, HERA Invest is open for application to companies developing medical countermeasures that address one of the following cross-border health threats: (i) Pathogens with pandemic or epidemic potential, (ii) Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) threats originating from accidental or deliberate release, and (iii) Antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Non-dilutive venture loans covering up to 50% of investment costs are available. A closing date is not posted insofar as I can see — applications are accepted on a rolling basis; go here for more details.
  • The AMR Action Fund is open on an ongoing basis to proposals for funding of Phase 2 / Phase 3 antibacterial therapeutics. Per its charter, the fund prioritizes investment in treatments that address a pathogen prioritized by the WHO, the CDC and/or other public health entities that: (i) are novel (e.g., absence of known cross-resistance, novel targets, new chemical classes, or new mechanisms of action); and/or (ii) have significant differentiated clinical utility (e.g., differentiated innovation that provides clinical value versus standard of care to prescribers and patients, such as safety/tolerability, oral formulation, different spectrum of activity); and (iii) reduce patient mortality. It is also expected that such agents would have the potential to strongly address the likely requirements for delinked Pull incentives such as the UK (NHS England) subscription pilot and the PASTEUR Act in the US. Submit queries to contact@amractionfund.com.
  • INCATE (Incubator for Antibacterial Therapies in Europe) is an early-stage funding vehicle supporting innovation vs. drug-resistant bacterial infections. The fund provides advice, community, and non-dilutive funding (€10k in Stage I and up to €250k in Stage II) to support early-stage ventures in creating the evidence and building the team needed to get next-level funding. Details and contacts on their website (https://www.incate.net/).
  • These things aren’t sources of funds but would help you develop funding applications
    • The Global AMR R&D Hub’s dynamic dashboard (link) summarizes the global clinical development pipeline, incentives for AMR R&D, and investors/investments in AMR R&D. See also the 7 Feb 2026 newsletter (“The global funding pipeline, 2017-2023: A review”) about an excellent deep dive by the Hub team into patterns of funding over time.
    • Antimicrobial Resistance Research and Innovation in Australia is an actively updated summary that covers Australia’s AMR research and patent landscape. It is provided via collaboration between The Lens (an ambitious project seeking to discover, analyse, and map global innovation knowledge) and CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research). Lots to explore here!
    • Diagnostic developers would find valuable guidance in this 6-part series on in vitro diagnostic (IVD) development. Sponsored by CARB-X, C-CAMP, and FIND, it pulls together real-life insights into a succinct set of tutorials.
  • In addition to the lists provided by the Global AMR R&D Hub, you might also be interested in my most current lists of R&D incentives (link) and priority pathogens (link).
]]> WHO: Virtual discussion on challenges of evidence generation https://amr.solutions/2026/07/16/who-virtual-discussion-on-challenges-of-evidence-generation/ Thu, 16 Jul 2026 21:06:31 +0000 https://amr.solutions/?p=25690

Dear All:

WHO have announced a very interesting 2-h virtual dialogue on optimal evidence generation across the antibiotic R&D lifecycle! Here are the details you need: 

  • When: 31 Aug 2026 (virtual, 2-4p CET): 
  • What: A dialogue on challenges such as
    • fragmented regulatory requirements,
    • trade-offs in clinical trial design, and
    • gaps between evidence generated for regulatory approval and the data needed to inform real-world clinical use and stewardship.
  • Format:
    • The agenda is not yet public but the goal is a virtual conversation rather than a set of talks!
    • As you’ll learn when you register, WHO is asking for volunteers to share vignettes regarding actual challenges!
  • Register here: Go to https://shorturl.at/95AwM to register
    • During registration, you will be asked whether you are interested in sharing your experience!


This sounds like a very interesting conversation — I am very glad to see WHO convening a public debate on these important topics! From my perspective, key themes are:

  • We must as a community balance our demands for data at approval with the pragmatic limits on trials that are feasible in non-geologic time.
  • As part of this, we need to find ways to better use our preclinical data as part of our consideration of the amount of uncertainty we can accept at approval. Did someone say Bayesian methods? See the 5 July 2026 newsletter entitled “FDA guidance on Substantial Effectiveness; EMA concept paper on Evaluation of Antifungal Agents)” for some hints on this. Hmmm!
  • And, we really must simplify our approach to pediatrics: When bridging from adults to children, the focus should really narrow to PK bridging — see the 7 April 2021 newsletter entitled “Developing antibiotics for children: There are no easy answers” for more on this point!


OK, rant over! I look forward to joining the conversation on 31 August! Thank you, Team WHO!

All best wishes, –jr

John H. Rex, MD | Chief Medical Officer, F2G Ltd. | Operating Partner, Advent Life Sciences. Follow me on Twitter: @JohnRex_NewAbx. See past newsletters and subscribe for the future: https://amr.solutions/blog/. All opinions are my own.

John’s Top Recurring Meetings
Virtual meetings are easy to attend, but regular attendance at annual in-person events is the key to building your network and gaining deeper insight. My personal favorites for such in-person meetings are below. Of particular value for developers, the small meeting format of BEAM’s AMR Conference (March) and GAMRIC (September-October; formerly, the ESCMID-ASM conference series) creates excellent global networking. IDWeek (October) and ECCMID (April) are much larger meetings but also provide opportunities for networking with a substantial, focused audience via their Pipeline sessions. Hope to see you there!

  • [LATE-BREAKER ABSTRACTS are open] 22-24 Sep 2026 (Lisbon, Portugal): The 2nd GAMRIC, the Global AMR Innovators Conference (London, UK). Formerly the ESCMID-ASM (or ASM-ESCMID depending on location) Joint Conference on Drug Development for AMR, 2026 will be the 11th year for this series that is now under the joint sponsorship of CARB-X, ESCMID, BEAM Alliance, GARDP, LifeArc, Boston University, and AMR.Solutions. The ongoing series employs the successful format of prior meetings with a single-track meeting and substantial networking time. The 2025 meeting was a sell-out success: a written summary is here and the videos are here. Registration for the 2026 meeting is now open and the near-final program is here: in addition to a keynote lecture by Karen Bush on the threat to beta-lactams due to the emergence of PBP3 mutations, there are sessions on funding, access, program design for narrow-spectrum agents such as phage, development for pediatrics, and more. Registration is ongoing; the main abstract submission window is closed but late-breaker abstracts will be accepted 8-22 July 2026.
  • 21-24 Oct 2026 (Washington, DC, USA): IDWeek 2026, the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. I would expect the program to continue to provide a substantial opportunity to present a product to a large audience (see also adjacent note about ESCMID) as well as opportunities to present at an IDWeek Pipeline Session. Go here to register.
  • 23-24 Mar 2027 (Basel, Switzerland): The 10th AMR Conference (3-4 Mar 2026) is now over and offered a rich program that included a 10-year retrospective (we’ve done a lot!), regulatory updates, discussions of how to pursue development in China, and much more … in addition to being a superb opportunity for networking! I am told the session videos will soon be available on the conference website.
  • 9-13 April 2027 (Stockholm, Sweden): ESCMID Global 2027, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Details won’t be out for some months, but the website is here. I do know that the meeting schedule will again include a Science Policy Forum on Friday 9 April 2027 (see here the newsletter about the 2026 science policy forum) and all who are interested in Pull incentives and the antibiotic ecosystem should plan to be there!)..

  Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:

  • 22 July (virtual, 2-3.30p CET): The WHO AMR Department and the WHO GAP-r (Global Accelerator for Pediatric Formulations) are hosting an industry dialogue on pediatric and neonatal antibiotic development. The discussion will cover timing of pediatric and neonatal studies, extrapolation from adult data, feasibility of trial designs in children and neonates, and variability in regulatory expectations across jurisdictions. This topic is a long-standing source of frustration for developers (see the 7 Apr 2021 newsletter: “Developing antibiotics for children: There are no easy answers”) and I am glad to see WHO convening discussions on ways to facilitate pediatric work! Go here to register.
  • 27 July (virtual, 2-3.30p CET): Inaugural webinar of the WHO Bacteriophage Community of Practice (CoP), a global platform for knowledge exchange across the bacteriophage ecosystem. You can register for the webinar here. You will also want to join the CoP itself — for this, you need a free account WHO Integrated Health Services (IHS) Hub account; look for  “WHO AMR Community Exchange” and then for the “Bacteriophage group” under “Explore our groups.”
  • [NEW] 31 Aug 2026 (virtual, 2-4p CET): WHO Dialogue with antibiotic developers on optimal evidence generation across the lifecycle. This 2-h session will be a virtual dialogue on the challenges such as fragmented regulatory requirements, trade-offs in clinical trial design, and gaps between evidence generated for regulatory approval and that needed to inform clinical use and stewardship. This session continues WHO’s efforts to use their convening power to shape the global conversation about how to improve the way(s) we advance new drugs from idea to the pharmacy. The agenda is not yet public but it’s clear that it will be a very interactive session: when you go here to register, you are asked about your experience(s) and have an opportunity to volunteer to present during the session.
  • 22-24 Sep 2026 (Lisbon, Portugal): GAMRIC  the Global AMR Innovators Conference. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above..
  • 10-18 Oct 2026 (Annecy, France, residential in-person program): ICARe (Interdisciplinary Course on Antibiotics and Resistance) … and 2026 will be the 10th year for this program. Patrice Courvalin orchestrates content with the support of an all-star scientific committee and faculty. The resulting soup-to-nuts training covers all aspects of antimicrobials, is very intense, and routinely gets rave reviews! Registration for 2026 is now open and runs through June 21, 2026. Go here to register!
  • 21-24 Oct 2026 (Washington, DC, USA): IDWeek 2026. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • 10-13 November 2026 (Madrid, Spain): The International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID) has announced its 21st International Congress on Infectious Diseases (ICID). Register and view the preliminary program here (Early bird closes 30 July 2026); abstract deadline is 28 April 2026.
  • 27-29 Jan 2027 (Las Vegas, USA): IMARI (Interdisciplinary Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance and Innovation) sponsored by IDSA and ASM. Abstract submissions are open through 19 Aug; registration and housing will open later this summer.
  • 23-24 Mar 2027 (Basel, Switzerland): The 11th AMR Conference sponsored by the BEAM Alliance. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • 9-13 April 2027 (Stockholm, Sweden): ESCMID Global 2026, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. See Recurring Meetings list, above.
  • ??? Mar 2028 (yes, that’s 2028, with location TBD): The 2028 Gordon Research Conference (GRC, https://www.grc.org/) entitled “Antibacterials of Tomorrow to Combat the Global Threat of Antimicrobial Resistance” and its related Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) for young doctoral and post-doctoral researchers will be sometime in March 2028. The organizers hope to coordinate dates and location with the 2028 BEAM-AMR meeting. Details to follow — mark your calendar!

Self-paced courses, online training materials, and other reference materials:

Current funding opportunities

  • Novo Nordisk Foundation (NNF) have an EUR 20m call for development of rapid, point-of-care diagnostics. See the 28 May 2026 newsletter for details; the deadline for expressions of interest is 7 Oct 2026.
  • CARB-X have had one funding round (8-22 April 2026); a further round is expected during 4Q 2026. There are 4 funding themes for these rounds as below.
    • Direct-acting therapeutics for infections caused by Gram-negative bacteria
    • Novel Chemistry for AMR Challenge – target-based therapeutics.
    • Non-vaccine approaches to prevent neonatal sepsis
    • Diagnostics for neonatal sepsis
  • The Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027 includes at least 3 calls of interest within its Cluster 1 — see the list below.  The application window starts 10 Feb 2026 and closes on 16 Apr 2026. See also the 12 Dec 2025 newsletter about the call. Note as well that there calls for agents to prevent and/or treat viral infections.
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2027-01-DISEASE-08: Development of innovative antimicrobials against pathogens resistant to antimicrobials
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2027-02-IND-02: Portable point-of-care diagnostics
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01-DISEASE-03:Advancing research on the prevention, diagnosis, and management of post-infection long-term conditions. 
  • ENABLE-2 has continuously open calls for both its Hit-to-Lead program as well as its Hit Identification/Validation incubator. Applicants must be academics and non-profits in Europe due to restrictions from the funders. Applications are evaluated in cycles … see the website for details on current timing for reviews. 
  • BARDA’s long-running BAA (Broad Agency Announcement) for medical countermeasures (MCMs) for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats, pandemic influenza, and emerging infectious diseases is now BAA-23-100-SOL-00004 and offers support for both antibacterial and antifungal agents (as well as antivirals, antitoxins, diagnostics, and more). Note especially these Areas of Interest: Area 3.1 (MDR Bacteria and Biothreat Pathogens), Area 3.2 (MDR Fungal Infections), and Area 7.2 (Antibiotic Resistance Diagnostics for Priority Bacterial Pathogens). Although prior BAAs used a rolling cycle of 4 deadlines/year, the updated BAA released 26 Sep 2023 has a 5-year application period that ends 25 Sep 2028 and is open to applicants regardless of location: BARDA seeks the best science from anywhere in the world! See also this newsletter for further comments on the BAA and its areas of interest.
  • HERA Invest was launched August 2023 with €100 million to support innovative EU-based SMEs in the early and late phases of clinical trials. Part of the InvestEU program supporting sustainable investment, innovation, and job creation in Europe, HERA Invest is open for application to companies developing medical countermeasures that address one of the following cross-border health threats: (i) Pathogens with pandemic or epidemic potential, (ii) Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) threats originating from accidental or deliberate release, and (iii) Antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Non-dilutive venture loans covering up to 50% of investment costs are available. A closing date is not posted insofar as I can see — applications are accepted on a rolling basis; go here for more details.
  • The AMR Action Fund is open on an ongoing basis to proposals for funding of Phase 2 / Phase 3 antibacterial therapeutics. Per its charter, the fund prioritizes investment in treatments that address a pathogen prioritized by the WHO, the CDC and/or other public health entities that: (i) are novel (e.g., absence of known cross-resistance, novel targets, new chemical classes, or new mechanisms of action); and/or (ii) have significant differentiated clinical utility (e.g., differentiated innovation that provides clinical value versus standard of care to prescribers and patients, such as safety/tolerability, oral formulation, different spectrum of activity); and (iii) reduce patient mortality. It is also expected that such agents would have the potential to strongly address the likely requirements for delinked Pull incentives such as the UK (NHS England) subscription pilot and the PASTEUR Act in the US. Submit queries to contact@amractionfund.com.
  • INCATE (Incubator for Antibacterial Therapies in Europe) is an early-stage funding vehicle supporting innovation vs. drug-resistant bacterial infections. The fund provides advice, community, and non-dilutive funding (€10k in Stage I and up to €250k in Stage II) to support early-stage ventures in creating the evidence and building the team needed to get next-level funding. Details and contacts on their website (https://www.incate.net/).
  • These things aren’t sources of funds but would help you develop funding applications
    • The Global AMR R&D Hub’s dynamic dashboard (link) summarizes the global clinical development pipeline, incentives for AMR R&D, and investors/investments in AMR R&D. See also the 7 Feb 2026 newsletter (“The global funding pipeline, 2017-2023: A review”) about an excellent deep dive by the Hub team into patterns of funding over time.
    • Antimicrobial Resistance Research and Innovation in Australia is an actively updated summary that covers Australia’s AMR research and patent landscape. It is provided via collaboration between The Lens (an ambitious project seeking to discover, analyse, and map global innovation knowledge) and CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research). Lots to explore here!
    • Diagnostic developers would find valuable guidance in this 6-part series on in vitro diagnostic (IVD) development. Sponsored by CARB-X, C-CAMP, and FIND, it pulls together real-life insights into a succinct set of tutorials.
  • In addition to the lists provided by the Global AMR R&D Hub, you might also be interested in my most current lists of R&D incentives (link) and priority pathogens (link).
]]> FDA guidance on Substantial Effectiveness; EMA concept paper on Evaluation of Antifungal Agents): Comments sought! https://amr.solutions/2026/07/05/fda-substantial-effectiveness-guidance-and-ema-evaluation-of-antifungal-agents-concept-paper-comments-sought/ Sun, 05 Jul 2026 18:11:29 +0000 https://amr.solutions/?p=25678

Dear All: Both FDA and EMA have recently released important documents for comment. See below for links and my commentary on the two documents.

== FDA: The Substantial Effectiveness guidance, further updated: Comments due 22 Sep 2026 ==
FDA have released a further revision of their Dec 2019 draft guidance entitled “Demonstrating Substantial Evidence of Effectiveness for Human Drug and Biological Products.” Here are the links you need:

  • The new (June 2026, revision 1) draft guidance: FR notice, webpage, and direct link
    • Title: “Demonstrating Substantial Evidence of Effectiveness for Human Drug and Biological Products”
  • The prior (Dec 2019) draft guidance: FR notice
  • The original (May 1998) guidance: FR notice, webpage, and direct link
    • Title (a little different): “Providing Clinical Evidence of Effectiveness for Human Drug and Biological Products”
  • Useful companion documents
    • (May 2023) “Demonstrating Substantial Evidence of Effectiveness With One Adequate and Well-Controlled Clinical Investigation and Confirmatory Evidence”
    • (Dec  2023) “Rare Diseases: Considerations for the Development of Drugs and Biological Products”
  • Brief background and comments:
    • The May 1998 guidance is the foundational document describing the requirements for approval based on data from a single trial (with confirmatory evidence) rather than multiple trials.
    • The key concept is that the 1962 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act created a requirement for a demonstration of “substantial evidence … consisting of adequate and well-controlled investigations, including clinical investigations…”
    • Note that terminal “s” on “investigations”: The original idea was that more than one trial was needed.
    • This idea was gradually updated with the realization that a single trial could be adequate provided it was supported by strong confirmatory evidence. This concept was codified in the 1998 guidance.
    • The Dec 2019 and Jun 2026 draft revisions clarify this principle but do not change it.
      • Note as well the NEJM position paper discussed in 1 Mar 2026 newsletter (“FDA: One pivotal trial (plus confirmatory evidence) is default expectation for approval”) that further pushes this idea.
    • What’s new from Dec 2019? I’m still digesting but what I see is that things are moved around a bit but nothing is dramatically new. Here are a few things that caught my eye on an initial survey: 
      • There is a new section on Trial Conduct: Study quality matters!
      • The statistical analysis discussion hints at the idea that Bayesian methods might be useful (lines 220-221). Note here the FDA’s Jan 2026 draft guidance on use of Bayesian methods.
      • There is an interesting hint (lines 436-7) that requirements for approval for pediatric use might be simplified (on this, see also the 7 Apr 2021 newsletter entitled “Developing antibiotics for children: There are no easy answers”).

== EMA: Concept paper on evaluation of antifungal agents: Comments due 30 Sep 2026 ==
EMA have announced their intent to update their 2010 guidance on developing antifungal drugs. Here are the links you need:

  • Master webpage that provides links to:
    • The 2010 guidance on developing antifungal agents: “Guideline on the clinical evaluation of antifungal agents for the treatment and prophylaxis of invasive fungal disease” (CHMP/EWP/1343/01 Rev. 1)
    • The 29 Jun 2026 concept paper: “Concept paper on the revision of the guideline on the clinical evaluation of antifungal agents for the treatment and prophylaxis of invasive fungal disease” (EMA/133954/2026)
  • The planned update of the 2010 guidance is certainly welcome as much has evolved since 2010. The concept paper points out the need for an update that considers points such as these:
    • We’ve increasingly recognized the problems inherent in studying really rare infection subtypes
    • There has been work on updates to consensus response criteria for invasive fungal infections
    • Best approaches to developing data for children (especially neonates) have also evolved


Very glad to see both of these documents! Please review and submit your comments! 

With thanks to our colleagues at the agencies and with all best wishes, –jr

John H. Rex, MD | Chief Medical Officer, F2G Ltd. | Operating Partner, Advent Life Sciences. Follow me on Twitter: @JohnRex_NewAbx. See past newsletters and subscribe for the future: https://amr.solutions/blog/. All opinions are my own.

John’s Top Recurring Meetings
Virtual meetings are easy to attend, but regular attendance at annual in-person events is the key to building your network and gaining deeper insight. My personal favorites for such in-person meetings are below. Of particular value for developers, the small meeting format of BEAM’s AMR Conference (March) and GAMRIC (September-October; formerly, the ESCMID-ASM conference series) creates excellent global networking. IDWeek (October) and ECCMID (April) are much larger meetings but also provide opportunities for networking with a substantial, focused audience via their Pipeline sessions. Hope to see you there!

  • [LATE-BREAKER ABSTRACTS open soon] 22-24 Sep 2026 (Lisbon, Portugal): The 2nd GAMRIC, the Global AMR Innovators Conference (London, UK). Formerly the ESCMID-ASM (or ASM-ESCMID depending on location) Joint Conference on Drug Development for AMR, 2026 will be the 11th year for this series that is now under the joint sponsorship of CARB-X, ESCMID, BEAM Alliance, GARDP, LifeArc, Boston University, and AMR.Solutions. The ongoing series employs the successful format of prior meetings with a single-track meeting and substantial networking time. The 2025 meeting was a sell-out success: a written summary is here and the videos are here. Registration for the 2026 meeting is now open and the near-final program is here: in addition to a keynote lecture by Karen Bush on the threat to beta-lactams due to the emergence of PBP3 mutations, there are sessions on funding, access, program design for narrow-spectrum agents such as phage, development for pediatrics, and more. Registration is ongoing — register now as early-bird rates end on 15 July! The main abstract submission window is closed but late-breaker abstracts will be accepted 8-22 July 2026.
  • 21-24 Oct 2026 (Washington, DC, USA): IDWeek 2026, the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. I would expect the program to continue to provide a substantial opportunity to present a product to a large audience (see also adjacent note about ESCMID) as well as opportunities to present at an IDWeek Pipeline Session. Go here to register.
  • 23-24 Mar 2027 (Basel, Switzerland): The 10th AMR Conference (3-4 Mar 2026) is now over and offered a rich program that included a 10-year retrospective (we’ve done a lot!), regulatory updates, discussions of how to pursue development in China, and much more … in addition to being a superb opportunity for networking! I am told the session videos will soon be available on the conference website.
  • 9-13 April 2027 (Stockholm, Sweden): ESCMID Global 2027, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Details won’t be out for some months, but the website is here. I do know that the meeting schedule will again include a Science Policy Forum on Friday 9 April 2027 (see here the newsletter about the 2026 science policy forum) and all who are interested in Pull incentives and the antibiotic ecosystem should plan to be there!)..

  Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:

  • [NEW] 22 July (virtual, 2-3.30p CET): The WHO AMR Department and the WHO GAP-r (Global Accelerator for Pediatric Formulations) are hosting an industry dialogue on pediatric and neonatal antibiotic development. The discussion will cover timing of pediatric and neonatal studies, extrapolation from adult data, feasibility of trial designs in children and neonates, and variability in regulatory expectations across jurisdictions. This topic is a long-standing source of frustration for developers (see the 7 Apr 2021 newsletter: “Developing antibiotics for children: There are no easy answers”) and I am glad to see WHO convening discussions on ways to facilitate pediatric work! Go here to register.
  • [NEW] 27 July (virtual, 2-3.30p CET): Inaugural webinar of the WHO Bacteriophage Community of Practice (CoP), a global platform for knowledge exchange across the bacteriophage ecosystem. You can register for the webinar here. You will also want to join the CoP itself — for this, you need a free account WHO Integrated Health Services (IHS) Hub account; look for  “WHO AMR Community Exchange” and then for the “Bacteriophage group” under “Explore our groups.”
  • 22-24 Sep 2026 GAMRIC (Lisbon, Portugal), the Global AMR Innovators Conference (London, UK; formerly the ESCMID-ASM Joint Conference on Drug Development for AMR). See list of Top Recurring meetings, above..
  • 10-18 Oct 2026 (Annecy, France, residential in-person program): ICARe (Interdisciplinary Course on Antibiotics and Resistance) … and 2026 will be the 10th year for this program. Patrice Courvalin orchestrates content with the support of an all-star scientific committee and faculty. The resulting soup-to-nuts training covers all aspects of antimicrobials, is very intense, and routinely gets rave reviews! Registration for 2026 is now open and runs through June 21, 2026. Go here to register!
  • 21-24 Oct 2026 (Washington, DC, USA): IDWeek 2026. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • 10-13 November 2026 (Madrid, Spain): The International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID) has announced its 21st International Congress on Infectious Diseases (ICID). Register and view the preliminary program here (Early bird closes 30 July 2026); abstract deadline is 28 April 2026.
  • [NEW] 27-29 Jan 2027 (Las Vegas, USA): IMARI (Interdisciplinary Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance and Innovation) sponsored by IDSA and ASM. Abstract submissions are open through 19 Aug; registration and housing will open later this summer.
  • 23-24 Mar 2027 (Basel, Switzerland): The 11th AMR Conference sponsored by the BEAM Alliance. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • 9-13 April 2027 (Stockholm, Sweden): ESCMID Global 2026, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. See Recurring Meetings list, above.
  • ??? Mar 2028 (yes, that’s 2028, with location TBD): The 2028 Gordon Research Conference (GRC, https://www.grc.org/) entitled “Antibacterials of Tomorrow to Combat the Global Threat of Antimicrobial Resistance” and its related Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) for young doctoral and post-doctoral researchers will be sometime in March 2028. The organizers hope to coordinate dates and location with the 2028 BEAM-AMR meeting. Details to follow — mark your calendar!

Self-paced courses, online training materials, and other reference materials:

Current funding opportunities

  • Novo Nordisk Foundation (NNF) have an EUR 20m call for development of rapid, point-of-care diagnostics. See the 28 May 2026 newsletter for details; the deadline for expressions of interest is 7 Oct 2026.
  • CARB-X have had one funding round (8-22 April 2026); a further round is expected during 4Q 2026. There are 4 funding themes for these rounds as below.
    • Direct-acting therapeutics for infections caused by Gram-negative bacteria
    • Novel Chemistry for AMR Challenge – target-based therapeutics.
    • Non-vaccine approaches to prevent neonatal sepsis
    • Diagnostics for neonatal sepsis
  • The Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027 includes at least 3 calls of interest within its Cluster 1 — see the list below.  The application window starts 10 Feb 2026 and closes on 16 Apr 2026. See also the 12 Dec 2025 newsletter about the call. Note as well that there calls for agents to prevent and/or treat viral infections.
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2027-01-DISEASE-08: Development of innovative antimicrobials against pathogens resistant to antimicrobials
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2027-02-IND-02: Portable point-of-care diagnostics
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01-DISEASE-03:Advancing research on the prevention, diagnosis, and management of post-infection long-term conditions. 
  • ENABLE-2 has continuously open calls for both its Hit-to-Lead program as well as its Hit Identification/Validation incubator. Applicants must be academics and non-profits in Europe due to restrictions from the funders. Applications are evaluated in cycles … see the website for details on current timing for reviews. 
  • BARDA’s long-running BAA (Broad Agency Announcement) for medical countermeasures (MCMs) for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats, pandemic influenza, and emerging infectious diseases is now BAA-23-100-SOL-00004 and offers support for both antibacterial and antifungal agents (as well as antivirals, antitoxins, diagnostics, and more). Note especially these Areas of Interest: Area 3.1 (MDR Bacteria and Biothreat Pathogens), Area 3.2 (MDR Fungal Infections), and Area 7.2 (Antibiotic Resistance Diagnostics for Priority Bacterial Pathogens). Although prior BAAs used a rolling cycle of 4 deadlines/year, the updated BAA released 26 Sep 2023 has a 5-year application period that ends 25 Sep 2028 and is open to applicants regardless of location: BARDA seeks the best science from anywhere in the world! See also this newsletter for further comments on the BAA and its areas of interest.
  • HERA Invest was launched August 2023 with €100 million to support innovative EU-based SMEs in the early and late phases of clinical trials. Part of the InvestEU program supporting sustainable investment, innovation, and job creation in Europe, HERA Invest is open for application to companies developing medical countermeasures that address one of the following cross-border health threats: (i) Pathogens with pandemic or epidemic potential, (ii) Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) threats originating from accidental or deliberate release, and (iii) Antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Non-dilutive venture loans covering up to 50% of investment costs are available. A closing date is not posted insofar as I can see — applications are accepted on a rolling basis; go here for more details.
  • The AMR Action Fund is open on an ongoing basis to proposals for funding of Phase 2 / Phase 3 antibacterial therapeutics. Per its charter, the fund prioritizes investment in treatments that address a pathogen prioritized by the WHO, the CDC and/or other public health entities that: (i) are novel (e.g., absence of known cross-resistance, novel targets, new chemical classes, or new mechanisms of action); and/or (ii) have significant differentiated clinical utility (e.g., differentiated innovation that provides clinical value versus standard of care to prescribers and patients, such as safety/tolerability, oral formulation, different spectrum of activity); and (iii) reduce patient mortality. It is also expected that such agents would have the potential to strongly address the likely requirements for delinked Pull incentives such as the UK (NHS England) subscription pilot and the PASTEUR Act in the US. Submit queries to contact@amractionfund.com.
  • INCATE (Incubator for Antibacterial Therapies in Europe) is an early-stage funding vehicle supporting innovation vs. drug-resistant bacterial infections. The fund provides advice, community, and non-dilutive funding (€10k in Stage I and up to €250k in Stage II) to support early-stage ventures in creating the evidence and building the team needed to get next-level funding. Details and contacts on their website (https://www.incate.net/).
  • These things aren’t sources of funds but would help you develop funding applications
    • The Global AMR R&D Hub’s dynamic dashboard (link) summarizes the global clinical development pipeline, incentives for AMR R&D, and investors/investments in AMR R&D. See also the 7 Feb 2026 newsletter (“The global funding pipeline, 2017-2023: A review”) about an excellent deep dive by the Hub team into patterns of funding over time.
    • Antimicrobial Resistance Research and Innovation in Australia is an actively updated summary that covers Australia’s AMR research and patent landscape. It is provided via collaboration between The Lens (an ambitious project seeking to discover, analyse, and map global innovation knowledge) and CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research). Lots to explore here!
    • Diagnostic developers would find valuable guidance in this 6-part series on in vitro diagnostic (IVD) development. Sponsored by CARB-X, C-CAMP, and FIND, it pulls together real-life insights into a succinct set of tutorials.
  • In addition to the lists provided by the Global AMR R&D Hub, you might also be interested in my most current lists of R&D incentives (link) and priority pathogens (link).
]]> WHO Webinars: Pediatric antibiotic R&D and Bacteriophage Community of Practice https://amr.solutions/2026/07/03/who-webinars-pediatric-antibiotic-rd-and-bacteriophage-community-of-practice/ Fri, 03 Jul 2026 21:04:16 +0000 https://amr.solutions/?p=25654

Dear All:

Two important webinars have just been announced!

  • 22 July (virtual, 2-3.30p CET): The WHO AMR Department and the WHO GAP-r (Global Accelerator for Pediatric Formulations) are hosting an industry dialogue on pediatric and neonatal antibiotic development:
    • The discussion will cover timing of pediatric and neonatal studies, extrapolation from adult data, feasibility of trial designs in children and neonates, and variability in regulatory expectations across jurisdictions.
    • This topic is a long-standing source of frustration for developers (see the 7 Apr 2021 newsletter: “Developing antibiotics for children: There are no easy answers”) and I am glad to see WHO convening discussions on ways to facilitate pediatric work! 
    • Go here to register.

 

  • 27 July (virtual, 2-3.30p CET): Inaugural webinar of the WHO Bacteriophage Community of Practice (CoP), a global platform for knowledge exchange across the bacteriophage ecosystem.
    • The CoP builds on the community previously hosted by the WHO Regional Office for Europe and aims to connect stakeholders across research, clinical development, regulation, and policy.
    • The webinar will present findings from a global bacteriophage ecosystem survey, highlight the activities of key regional and international phage networks, and explore shared priorities and opportunities for future collaboration.
    • You can register for the webinar here. 
    • You will also want to join the CoP itself — for this, you need a free account WHO Integrated Health Services (IHS) Hub account; look for  “WHO AMR Community Exchange” and then for the “Bacteriophage group” under “Explore our groups.”
    • You might also be interested in the previously recorded phage-related webinars discussed in the 12 May 2024 newsletter entitled “Environmental, Animal, and Human Uses of Phage: WHO webinars”


And that’s it for today! Happy summer! Stay cool! All best wishes, –jr

John H. Rex, MD | Chief Medical Officer, F2G Ltd. | Operating Partner, Advent Life Sciences. Follow me on Twitter: @JohnRex_NewAbx. See past newsletters and subscribe for the future: https://amr.solutions/blog/. All opinions are my own.

John’s Top Recurring Meetings
Virtual meetings are easy to attend, but regular attendance at annual in-person events is the key to building your network and gaining deeper insight. My personal favorites for such in-person meetings are below. Of particular value for developers, the small meeting format of BEAM’s AMR Conference (March) and GAMRIC (September-October; formerly, the ESCMID-ASM conference series) creates excellent global networking. IDWeek (October) and ECCMID (April) are much larger meetings but also provide opportunities for networking with a substantial, focused audience via their Pipeline sessions. Hope to see you there!

  • [LATE-BREAKER ABSTRACTS open soon] 22-24 Sep 2026 (Lisbon, Portugal): The 2nd GAMRIC, the Global AMR Innovators Conference (London, UK). Formerly the ESCMID-ASM (or ASM-ESCMID depending on location) Joint Conference on Drug Development for AMR, 2026 will be the 11th year for this series that is now under the joint sponsorship of CARB-X, ESCMID, BEAM Alliance, GARDP, LifeArc, Boston University, and AMR.Solutions. The ongoing series employs the successful format of prior meetings with a single-track meeting and substantial networking time. The 2025 meeting was a sell-out success: a written summary is here and the videos are here. Registration for the 2026 meeting is now open and the near-final program is here: in addition to a keynote lecture by Karen Bush on the threat to beta-lactams due to the emergence of PBP3 mutations, there are sessions on funding, access, program design for narrow-spectrum agents such as phage, development for pediatrics, and more. Registration is ongoing — register now as early-bird rates end on 15 July! The main abstract submission window is closed but late-breaker abstracts will be accepted 8-22 July 2026.
  • 21-24 Oct 2026 (Washington, DC, USA): IDWeek 2026, the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. I would expect the program to continue to provide a substantial opportunity to present a product to a large audience (see also adjacent note about ESCMID) as well as opportunities to present at an IDWeek Pipeline Session. Go here to register.
  • 23-24 Mar 2027 (Basel, Switzerland): The 10th AMR Conference (3-4 Mar 2026) is now over and offered a rich program that included a 10-year retrospective (we’ve done a lot!), regulatory updates, discussions of how to pursue development in China, and much more … in addition to being a superb opportunity for networking! I am told the session videos will soon be available on the conference website.
  • 9-13 April 2027 (Stockholm, Sweden): ESCMID Global 2027, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Details won’t be out for some months, but the website is here. I do know that the meeting schedule will again include a Science Policy Forum on Friday 9 April 2027 (see here the newsletter about the 2026 science policy forum) and all who are interested in Pull incentives and the antibiotic ecosystem should plan to be there!)..

  Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:

  • [NEW] 22 July (virtual, 2-3.30p CET): The WHO AMR Department and the WHO GAP-r (Global Accelerator for Pediatric Formulations) are hosting an industry dialogue on pediatric and neonatal antibiotic development. The discussion will cover timing of pediatric and neonatal studies, extrapolation from adult data, feasibility of trial designs in children and neonates, and variability in regulatory expectations across jurisdictions. This topic is a long-standing source of frustration for developers (see the 7 Apr 2021 newsletter: “Developing antibiotics for children: There are no easy answers”) and I am glad to see WHO convening discussions on ways to facilitate pediatric work! Go here to register.
  • [NEW] 27 July (virtual, 2-3.30p CET): Inaugural webinar of the WHO Bacteriophage Community of Practice (CoP), a global platform for knowledge exchange across the bacteriophage ecosystem. You can register for the webinar here. You will also want to join the CoP itself — for this, you need a free account WHO Integrated Health Services (IHS) Hub account; look for  “WHO AMR Community Exchange” and then for the “Bacteriophage group” under “Explore our groups.”
  • 22-24 Sep 2026 GAMRIC (Lisbon, Portugal), the Global AMR Innovators Conference (London, UK; formerly the ESCMID-ASM Joint Conference on Drug Development for AMR). See list of Top Recurring meetings, above..
  • 10-18 Oct 2026 (Annecy, France, residential in-person program): ICARe (Interdisciplinary Course on Antibiotics and Resistance) … and 2026 will be the 10th year for this program. Patrice Courvalin orchestrates content with the support of an all-star scientific committee and faculty. The resulting soup-to-nuts training covers all aspects of antimicrobials, is very intense, and routinely gets rave reviews! Registration for 2026 is now open and runs through June 21, 2026. Go here to register!
  • 21-24 Oct 2026 (Washington, DC, USA): IDWeek 2026. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • 10-13 November 2026 (Madrid, Spain): The International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID) has announced its 21st International Congress on Infectious Diseases (ICID). Register and view the preliminary program here (Early bird closes 30 July 2026); abstract deadline is 28 April 2026.
  • [NEW] 27-29 Jan 2027 (Las Vegas, USA): IMARI (Interdisciplinary Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance and Innovation) sponsored by IDSA and ASM. Abstract submissions are open through 19 Aug; registration and housing will open later this summer.
  • 23-24 Mar 2027 (Basel, Switzerland): The 11th AMR Conference sponsored by the BEAM Alliance. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • 9-13 April 2027 (Stockholm, Sweden): ESCMID Global 2026, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. See Recurring Meetings list, above.
  • ??? Mar 2028 (yes, that’s 2028, with location TBD): The 2028 Gordon Research Conference (GRC, https://www.grc.org/) entitled “Antibacterials of Tomorrow to Combat the Global Threat of Antimicrobial Resistance” and its related Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) for young doctoral and post-doctoral researchers will be sometime in March 2028. The organizers hope to coordinate dates and location with the 2028 BEAM-AMR meeting. Details to follow — mark your calendar!

Self-paced courses, online training materials, and other reference materials:

Current funding opportunities

  • Novo Nordisk Foundation (NNF) have an EUR 20m call for development of rapid, point-of-care diagnostics. See the 28 May 2026 newsletter for details; the deadline for expressions of interest is 7 Oct 2026.
  • CARB-X have had one funding round (8-22 April 2026); a further round is expected during 4Q 2026. There are 4 funding themes for these rounds as below.
    • Direct-acting therapeutics for infections caused by Gram-negative bacteria
    • Novel Chemistry for AMR Challenge – target-based therapeutics.
    • Non-vaccine approaches to prevent neonatal sepsis
    • Diagnostics for neonatal sepsis
  • The Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027 includes at least 3 calls of interest within its Cluster 1 — see the list below.  The application window starts 10 Feb 2026 and closes on 16 Apr 2026. See also the 12 Dec 2025 newsletter about the call. Note as well that there calls for agents to prevent and/or treat viral infections.
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2027-01-DISEASE-08: Development of innovative antimicrobials against pathogens resistant to antimicrobials
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2027-02-IND-02: Portable point-of-care diagnostics
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01-DISEASE-03:Advancing research on the prevention, diagnosis, and management of post-infection long-term conditions. 
  • ENABLE-2 has continuously open calls for both its Hit-to-Lead program as well as its Hit Identification/Validation incubator. Applicants must be academics and non-profits in Europe due to restrictions from the funders. Applications are evaluated in cycles … see the website for details on current timing for reviews. 
  • BARDA’s long-running BAA (Broad Agency Announcement) for medical countermeasures (MCMs) for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats, pandemic influenza, and emerging infectious diseases is now BAA-23-100-SOL-00004 and offers support for both antibacterial and antifungal agents (as well as antivirals, antitoxins, diagnostics, and more). Note especially these Areas of Interest: Area 3.1 (MDR Bacteria and Biothreat Pathogens), Area 3.2 (MDR Fungal Infections), and Area 7.2 (Antibiotic Resistance Diagnostics for Priority Bacterial Pathogens). Although prior BAAs used a rolling cycle of 4 deadlines/year, the updated BAA released 26 Sep 2023 has a 5-year application period that ends 25 Sep 2028 and is open to applicants regardless of location: BARDA seeks the best science from anywhere in the world! See also this newsletter for further comments on the BAA and its areas of interest.
  • HERA Invest was launched August 2023 with €100 million to support innovative EU-based SMEs in the early and late phases of clinical trials. Part of the InvestEU program supporting sustainable investment, innovation, and job creation in Europe, HERA Invest is open for application to companies developing medical countermeasures that address one of the following cross-border health threats: (i) Pathogens with pandemic or epidemic potential, (ii) Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) threats originating from accidental or deliberate release, and (iii) Antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Non-dilutive venture loans covering up to 50% of investment costs are available. A closing date is not posted insofar as I can see — applications are accepted on a rolling basis; go here for more details.
  • The AMR Action Fund is open on an ongoing basis to proposals for funding of Phase 2 / Phase 3 antibacterial therapeutics. Per its charter, the fund prioritizes investment in treatments that address a pathogen prioritized by the WHO, the CDC and/or other public health entities that: (i) are novel (e.g., absence of known cross-resistance, novel targets, new chemical classes, or new mechanisms of action); and/or (ii) have significant differentiated clinical utility (e.g., differentiated innovation that provides clinical value versus standard of care to prescribers and patients, such as safety/tolerability, oral formulation, different spectrum of activity); and (iii) reduce patient mortality. It is also expected that such agents would have the potential to strongly address the likely requirements for delinked Pull incentives such as the UK (NHS England) subscription pilot and the PASTEUR Act in the US. Submit queries to contact@amractionfund.com.
  • INCATE (Incubator for Antibacterial Therapies in Europe) is an early-stage funding vehicle supporting innovation vs. drug-resistant bacterial infections. The fund provides advice, community, and non-dilutive funding (€10k in Stage I and up to €250k in Stage II) to support early-stage ventures in creating the evidence and building the team needed to get next-level funding. Details and contacts on their website (https://www.incate.net/).
  • These things aren’t sources of funds but would help you develop funding applications
    • The Global AMR R&D Hub’s dynamic dashboard (link) summarizes the global clinical development pipeline, incentives for AMR R&D, and investors/investments in AMR R&D. See also the 7 Feb 2026 newsletter (“The global funding pipeline, 2017-2023: A review”) about an excellent deep dive by the Hub team into patterns of funding over time.
    • Antimicrobial Resistance Research and Innovation in Australia is an actively updated summary that covers Australia’s AMR research and patent landscape. It is provided via collaboration between The Lens (an ambitious project seeking to discover, analyse, and map global innovation knowledge) and CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research). Lots to explore here!
    • Diagnostic developers would find valuable guidance in this 6-part series on in vitro diagnostic (IVD) development. Sponsored by CARB-X, C-CAMP, and FIND, it pulls together real-life insights into a succinct set of tutorials.
  • In addition to the lists provided by the Global AMR R&D Hub, you might also be interested in my most current lists of R&D incentives (link) and priority pathogens (link).
]]> CDC: Funding opportunities (1 each) in US, Africa, and Asia https://amr.solutions/2026/06/02/cdc-funding-opportunities-1-each-in-us-africa-and-asia/ Tue, 02 Jun 2026 20:35:19 +0000 https://amr.solutions/?p=25595

Dear All: CDC have recently posted this eclectic mixture of funding opportunities that circle the globe! 

  • Funding opportunity: CDC-RFA-CK-26-0107
    • Title: “Building National Partnerships for the Prevention of Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases“
    • Brief description: Seeks to build capacity in the United States to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease threats by building and sustaining critical infrastructure, workforce training, communication strategies, and emergency response capabilities.
    • Closing date: 1 Jul 20206
  • Funding opportunity: CDC-RFA-JG-26-0125
    • Title: Strengthening tuberculosis (TB) prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and surveillance in Asia
    • Brief description: Seeks to reduce TB-related morbidity and mortality in India, the Philippines, and Vietnam by strengthening TB case finding, TB prevention, and TB treatment.
    • Closing date: 22 June 2026
  • Funding opportunity: RFA-JG-26-034
    • Title: Enhancing Understanding of and Preparedness for Public Health Threats Through Research in Kenya
    • Brief description: Seeks to support research, implementation science, and public health evaluations to inform best practices for preventing and responding to infectious disease threats in Kenya, while strengthening local research capacity.
    • Closing date: 22 June 2026

Is one of these for you? Go take a look!

With thanks to our colleagues at CDC and with all best wishes, –jr

John H. Rex, MD | Chief Medical Officer, F2G Ltd. | Operating Partner, Advent Life Sciences. Follow me on Twitter: @JohnRex_NewAbx. See past newsletters and subscribe for the future: https://amr.solutions/blog/. All opinions are my own.

John’s Top Recurring Meetings
Virtual meetings are easy to attend, but regular attendance at annual in-person events is the key to building your network and gaining deeper insight. My personal favorites for such in-person meetings are below. Of particular value for developers, the small meeting format of BEAM’s AMR Conference (March) and GAMRIC (September-October; formerly, the ESCMID-ASM conference series) creates excellent global networking. IDWeek (October) and ECCMID (April) are much larger meetings but also provide opportunities for networking with a substantial, focused audience via their Pipeline sessions. Hope to see you there!

  • 22-24 Sep 2026 (Lisbon, Portugal): The 2nd GAMRIC, the Global AMR Innovators Conference (London, UK). Formerly the ESCMID-ASM (or ASM-ESCMID depending on location) Joint Conference on Drug Development for AMR, 2026 will be the 11th year for this series that is now under the joint sponsorship of CARB-X, ESCMID, BEAM Alliance, GARDP, LifeArc, Boston University, and AMR.Solutions. The ongoing series employs the successful format of prior meetings with a single-track meeting and substantial networking time. The 2025 meeting was a sell-out success: a written summary is here and the videos are here. Registration for the 2026 meeting is now open and the near-final program is here: in addition to a keynote lecture by Karen Bush on the threat to beta-lactams due to the emergence of PBP3 mutations, there are sessions on funding, access, program design for narrow-spectrum agents such as phage, development for pediatrics, and more. The main abstract submission window is closed but late-breaker abstracts will be accepted 8-22 July 2026.
  • [Registration is open] 21-24 Oct 2026 (Washington, DC, USA): IDWeek 2026, the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. I would expect the program to continue to provide a substantial opportunity to present a product to a large audience (see also adjacent note about ESCMID) as well as opportunities to present at an IDWeek Pipeline Session. Go here to register.
  • 23-24 Mar 2027 (Basel, Switzerland): The 10th AMR Conference (3-4 Mar 2026) is now over and offered a rich program that included a 10-year retrospective (we’ve done a lot!), regulatory updates, discussions of how to pursue development in China, and much more … in addition to being a superb opportunity for networking! I am told the session videos will soon be available on the conference website.
  • 9-13 April 2027 (Stockholm, Sweden): ESCMID Global 2027, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Details won’t be out for some months, but the website is here. I do know that the meeting schedule will again include a Science Policy Forum on Friday 9 April 2027 (see here the newsletter about the 2026 science policy forum) and all who are interested in Pull incentives and the antibiotic ecosystem should plan to be there!)..

  Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:

  • 4-8 June 2026 (Washington, DC): ASM Microbe, the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. The meeting format is evolving and next year will combine 3 meetings (ASM Health, ASM Applied and Environmental Microbiology, and ASM Mechanism Discovery) into one event. Go here for details.
  • 11-12 Jun 2026 (Washington, DC): The Second Annual Unite for Sepsis Symposium, presented by the Sepsis Alliance. The event seeks to accelerate progress in sepsis research and care. Go here for details and to register.
  • [NEW] 16 Jun 2026 (11am-noon GMT, virtual): WHO Webinar Series to Support Implementation of National Action Plans on Antimicrobial Resistance: Webinar focused on AMR Education and Learning of the healthcare work force. Go here to register.
  • 22-24 Sep 2026 GAMRIC (Lisbon, Portugal), the Global AMR Innovators Conference (London, UK; formerly the ESCMID-ASM Joint Conference on Drug Development for AMR). See list of Top Recurring meetings, above..
  • 10-18 Oct 2026 (Annecy, France, residential in-person program): ICARe (Interdisciplinary Course on Antibiotics and Resistance) … and 2026 will be the 10th year for this program. Patrice Courvalin orchestrates content with the support of an all-star scientific committee and faculty. The resulting soup-to-nuts training covers all aspects of antimicrobials, is very intense, and routinely gets rave reviews! Registration for 2026 is now open and runs through June 21, 2026. Go here to register!
  • 21-24 Oct 2026 (Washington, DC, USA): IDWeek 2026. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • 10-13 November 2026 (Madrid, Spain): The International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID) has announced its 21st International Congress on Infectious Diseases (ICID). Register and view the preliminary program here (Early bird closes 30 July 2026); abstract deadline is 28 April 2026.
  • 23-24 Mar 2027 (Basel, Switzerland): The 11th AMR Conference sponsored by the BEAM Alliance. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • 9-13 April 2027 (Stockholm, Sweden): ESCMID Global 2026, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. See Recurring Meetings list, above.
  • ??? Mar 2028 (yes, that’s 2028, with location TBD): The 2028 Gordon Research Conference (GRC, https://www.grc.org/) entitled “Antibacterials of Tomorrow to Combat the Global Threat of Antimicrobial Resistance” and its related Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) for young doctoral and post-doctoral researchers will be sometime in March 2028. The organizers hope to coordinate dates and location with the 2028 BEAM-AMR meeting. Details to follow — mark your calendar!

Self-paced courses, online training materials, and other reference materials:

Current funding opportunities

  • Novo Nordisk Foundation (NNF) have an EUR 20m call for development of rapid, point-of-care diagnostics. See the 28 May 2026 newsletter for details; the deadline for expressions of interest is 7 Oct 2026.
  • CARB-X have had one funding round (8-22 April 2026); a further round is expected during 4Q 2026. There are 4 funding themes for these rounds as below.
    • Direct-acting therapeutics for infections caused by Gram-negative bacteria
    • Novel Chemistry for AMR Challenge – target-based therapeutics.
    • Non-vaccine approaches to prevent neonatal sepsis
    • Diagnostics for neonatal sepsis
  • The Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027 includes at least 3 calls of interest within its Cluster 1 — see the list below.  The application window starts 10 Feb 2026 and closes on 16 Apr 2026. See also the 12 Dec 2025 newsletter about the call. Note as well that there calls for agents to prevent and/or treat viral infections.
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2027-01-DISEASE-08: Development of innovative antimicrobials against pathogens resistant to antimicrobials
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2027-02-IND-02: Portable point-of-care diagnostics
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01-DISEASE-03:Advancing research on the prevention, diagnosis, and management of post-infection long-term conditions. 
  • ENABLE-2 has continuously open calls for both its Hit-to-Lead program as well as its Hit Identification/Validation incubator. Applicants must be academics and non-profits in Europe due to restrictions from the funders. Applications are evaluated in cycles … see the website for details on current timing for reviews. 
  • BARDA’s long-running BAA (Broad Agency Announcement) for medical countermeasures (MCMs) for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats, pandemic influenza, and emerging infectious diseases is now BAA-23-100-SOL-00004 and offers support for both antibacterial and antifungal agents (as well as antivirals, antitoxins, diagnostics, and more). Note especially these Areas of Interest: Area 3.1 (MDR Bacteria and Biothreat Pathogens), Area 3.2 (MDR Fungal Infections), and Area 7.2 (Antibiotic Resistance Diagnostics for Priority Bacterial Pathogens). Although prior BAAs used a rolling cycle of 4 deadlines/year, the updated BAA released 26 Sep 2023 has a 5-year application period that ends 25 Sep 2028 and is open to applicants regardless of location: BARDA seeks the best science from anywhere in the world! See also this newsletter for further comments on the BAA and its areas of interest.
  • HERA Invest was launched August 2023 with €100 million to support innovative EU-based SMEs in the early and late phases of clinical trials. Part of the InvestEU program supporting sustainable investment, innovation, and job creation in Europe, HERA Invest is open for application to companies developing medical countermeasures that address one of the following cross-border health threats: (i) Pathogens with pandemic or epidemic potential, (ii) Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) threats originating from accidental or deliberate release, and (iii) Antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Non-dilutive venture loans covering up to 50% of investment costs are available. A closing date is not posted insofar as I can see — applications are accepted on a rolling basis; go here for more details.
  • The AMR Action Fund is open on an ongoing basis to proposals for funding of Phase 2 / Phase 3 antibacterial therapeutics. Per its charter, the fund prioritizes investment in treatments that address a pathogen prioritized by the WHO, the CDC and/or other public health entities that: (i) are novel (e.g., absence of known cross-resistance, novel targets, new chemical classes, or new mechanisms of action); and/or (ii) have significant differentiated clinical utility (e.g., differentiated innovation that provides clinical value versus standard of care to prescribers and patients, such as safety/tolerability, oral formulation, different spectrum of activity); and (iii) reduce patient mortality. It is also expected that such agents would have the potential to strongly address the likely requirements for delinked Pull incentives such as the UK (NHS England) subscription pilot and the PASTEUR Act in the US. Submit queries to contact@amractionfund.com.
  • INCATE (Incubator for Antibacterial Therapies in Europe) is an early-stage funding vehicle supporting innovation vs. drug-resistant bacterial infections. The fund provides advice, community, and non-dilutive funding (€10k in Stage I and up to €250k in Stage II) to support early-stage ventures in creating the evidence and building the team needed to get next-level funding. Details and contacts on their website (https://www.incate.net/).
  • These things aren’t sources of funds but would help you develop funding applications
    • The Global AMR R&D Hub’s dynamic dashboard (link) summarizes the global clinical development pipeline, incentives for AMR R&D, and investors/investments in AMR R&D. See also the 7 Feb 2026 newsletter (“The global funding pipeline, 2017-2023: A review”) about an excellent deep dive by the Hub team into patterns of funding over time.
    • Antimicrobial Resistance Research and Innovation in Australia is an actively updated summary that covers Australia’s AMR research and patent landscape. It is provided via collaboration between The Lens (an ambitious project seeking to discover, analyse, and map global innovation knowledge) and CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research). Lots to explore here!
    • Diagnostic developers would find valuable guidance in this 6-part series on in vitro diagnostic (IVD) development. Sponsored by CARB-X, C-CAMP, and FIND, it pulls together real-life insights into a succinct set of tutorials.
  • In addition to the lists provided by the Global AMR R&D Hub, you might also be interested in my most current lists of R&D incentives (link) and priority pathogens (link).
]]> PACCARB returns! 16 June 2026 virtual meeting https://amr.solutions/2026/05/30/paccarb-returns-16-june-2026-virtual-meeting/ Sat, 30 May 2026 17:29:57 +0000 https://amr.solutions/?p=25579

Dear All:

Without much fanfare, we have an announcement that PACCARB (the US Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria) is being revived at a 16 June 2026 virtual meeting! Here are the links you need:

From the DHHS webpage, we have these notes regarding the meeting:

  • “The 27th PACCARB public meeting will be virtual on June 16, 2026.
  • “The focus of the public meeting will be to inform the next iteration of the U.S. National Action Plan on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria.
  • “This meeting will have an extended written public comment option to allow for more participation and public input on the next iteration of the U.S. National Action Plan on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria.
  • You may provide written comments until end of day on June 19, 2026 to CARB@hhs.gov, which will be provided to both the PACCARB and the Federal Inter-Agency Task Force on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria.”
  • “Add to your calendar here.”
  • “The meeting can be accessed live on the day of the meeting at https://www.hhs.gov/live.”


Yow! It’s very good to see PACCARB being revived! You may recall that the 27th meeting originally scheduled for 28-29 Jan 2025 was cancelled shortly after the Trump administration took office (see the 23 Jan 2025 newsletter). I don’t see an agenda but the intent (continue to work on updating the US National Action Plan on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria (NAP CARB) is clear.

Mark your calendars to listen in!

All best wishes, –jr

John H. Rex, MD | Chief Medical Officer, F2G Ltd. | Operating Partner, Advent Life Sciences. Follow me on Twitter: @JohnRex_NewAbx. See past newsletters and subscribe for the future: https://amr.solutions/blog/. All opinions are my own.

John’s Top Recurring Meetings
Virtual meetings are easy to attend, but regular attendance at annual in-person events is the key to building your network and gaining deeper insight. My personal favorites for such in-person meetings are below. Of particular value for developers, the small meeting format of BEAM’s AMR Conference (March) and GAMRIC (September-October; formerly, the ESCMID-ASM conference series) creates excellent global networking. IDWeek (October) and ECCMID (April) are much larger meetings but also provide opportunities for networking with a substantial, focused audience via their Pipeline sessions. Hope to see you there!

  • [UPDATED INFO] 22-24 Sep 2026 (Lisbon, Portugal): The 2nd GAMRIC, the Global AMR Innovators Conference (London, UK). Formerly the ESCMID-ASM (or ASM-ESCMID depending on location) Joint Conference on Drug Development for AMR, 2026 will be the 11th year for this series that is now under the joint sponsorship of CARB-X, ESCMID, BEAM Alliance, GARDP, LifeArc, Boston University, and AMR.Solutions. The ongoing series employs the successful format of prior meetings with a single-track meeting and substantial networking time. The 2025 meeting was a sell-out success: a written summary is here and the videos are here. Registration for the 2026 meeting is now open and the near-final program is here: in addition to a keynote lecture by Karen Bush on the threat to beta-lactams due to the emergence of PBP3 mutations, there are sessions on funding, access, program design for narrow-spectrum agents such as phage, development for pediatrics, and more. The main abstract submission window is closed but late-breaker abstracts will be accepted 8-22 July 2026.
  • 21-24 Oct 2026 (Washington, DC, USA): IDWeek 2026, the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. I would expect the program to continue to provide a substantial opportunity to present a product to a large audience (see also adjacent note about ESCMID) as well as opportunities to present at an IDWeek Pipeline Session.
  • 23-24 Mar 2027 (Basel, Switzerland): The 10th AMR Conference (3-4 Mar 2026) is now over and offered a rich program that included a 10-year retrospective (we’ve done a lot!), regulatory updates, discussions of how to pursue development in China, and much more … in addition to being a superb opportunity for networking! I am told the session videos will soon be available on the conference website.
  • 9-13 April 2027 (Stockholm, Sweden): ESCMID Global 2027, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Details won’t be out for some months, but the website is here. I do know that the meeting schedule will again include a Science Policy Forum on Friday 9 April 2027 (see here the newsletter about the 2026 science policy forum) and all who are interested in Pull incentives and the antibiotic ecosystem should plan to be there!)..

  Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:

  • 4-8 June 2026 (Washington, DC): ASM Microbe, the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. The meeting format is evolving and next year will combine 3 meetings (ASM Health, ASM Applied and Environmental Microbiology, and ASM Mechanism Discovery) into one event. Go here for details.
  • 11-12 Jun 2026 (Washington, DC): The Second Annual Unite for Sepsis Symposium, presented by the Sepsis Alliance. The event seeks to accelerate progress in sepsis research and care. Go here for details and to register.
  • 22-24 Sep 2026 GAMRIC (Lisbon, Portugal), the Global AMR Innovators Conference (London, UK; formerly the ESCMID-ASM Joint Conference on Drug Development for AMR). See list of Top Recurring meetings, above..
  • [REGISTRATION IS OPEN] 10-18 Oct 2026 (Annecy, France, residential in-person program): ICARe (Interdisciplinary Course on Antibiotics and Resistance) … and 2026 will be the 10th year for this program. Patrice Courvalin orchestrates content with the support of an all-star scientific committee and faculty. The resulting soup-to-nuts training covers all aspects of antimicrobials, is very intense, and routinely gets rave reviews! Registration for 2026 is now open and runs through June 21, 2026. Go here to register!
  • 21-24 Oct 2026 (Washington, DC, USA): IDWeek 2026. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • 10-13 November 2026 (Madrid, Spain): The International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID) has announced its 21st International Congress on Infectious Diseases (ICID). Register and view the preliminary program here (Early bird closes 30 July 2026); abstract deadline is 28 April 2026.
  • 23-24 Mar 2027 (Basel, Switzerland): The 11th AMR Conference sponsored by the BEAM Alliance. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • 9-13 April 2027 (Stockholm, Sweden): ESCMID Global 2026, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. See Recurring Meetings list, above.
  • ??? Mar 2028 (yes, that’s 2028, with location TBD): The 2028 Gordon Research Conference (GRC, https://www.grc.org/) entitled “Antibacterials of Tomorrow to Combat the Global Threat of Antimicrobial Resistance” and its related Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) for young doctoral and post-doctoral researchers will be sometime in March 2028. The organizers hope to coordinate dates and location with the 2028 BEAM-AMR meeting. Details to follow — mark your calendar!

Self-paced courses, online training materials, and other reference materials:

Current funding opportunities

  • Novo Nordisk Foundation (NNF) have an EUR 20m call for development of rapid, point-of-care diagnostics. See the 28 May 2026 newsletter for details; the deadline for expressions of interest is 7 Oct 2026.
  • CARB-X have had one funding round (8-22 April 2026); a further round is expected during 4Q 2026. There are 4 funding themes for these rounds as below.
    • Direct-acting therapeutics for infections caused by Gram-negative bacteria
    • Novel Chemistry for AMR Challenge – target-based therapeutics.
    • Non-vaccine approaches to prevent neonatal sepsis
    • Diagnostics for neonatal sepsis
  • The Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027 includes at least 3 calls of interest within its Cluster 1 — see the list below.  The application window starts 10 Feb 2026 and closes on 16 Apr 2026. See also the 12 Dec 2025 newsletter about the call. Note as well that there calls for agents to prevent and/or treat viral infections.
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2027-01-DISEASE-08: Development of innovative antimicrobials against pathogens resistant to antimicrobials
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2027-02-IND-02: Portable point-of-care diagnostics
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01-DISEASE-03:Advancing research on the prevention, diagnosis, and management of post-infection long-term conditions. 
  • ENABLE-2 has continuously open calls for both its Hit-to-Lead program as well as its Hit Identification/Validation incubator. Applicants must be academics and non-profits in Europe due to restrictions from the funders. Applications are evaluated in cycles … see the website for details on current timing for reviews. 
  • BARDA’s long-running BAA (Broad Agency Announcement) for medical countermeasures (MCMs) for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats, pandemic influenza, and emerging infectious diseases is now BAA-23-100-SOL-00004 and offers support for both antibacterial and antifungal agents (as well as antivirals, antitoxins, diagnostics, and more). Note especially these Areas of Interest: Area 3.1 (MDR Bacteria and Biothreat Pathogens), Area 3.2 (MDR Fungal Infections), and Area 7.2 (Antibiotic Resistance Diagnostics for Priority Bacterial Pathogens). Although prior BAAs used a rolling cycle of 4 deadlines/year, the updated BAA released 26 Sep 2023 has a 5-year application period that ends 25 Sep 2028 and is open to applicants regardless of location: BARDA seeks the best science from anywhere in the world! See also this newsletter for further comments on the BAA and its areas of interest.
  • HERA Invest was launched August 2023 with €100 million to support innovative EU-based SMEs in the early and late phases of clinical trials. Part of the InvestEU program supporting sustainable investment, innovation, and job creation in Europe, HERA Invest is open for application to companies developing medical countermeasures that address one of the following cross-border health threats: (i) Pathogens with pandemic or epidemic potential, (ii) Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) threats originating from accidental or deliberate release, and (iii) Antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Non-dilutive venture loans covering up to 50% of investment costs are available. A closing date is not posted insofar as I can see — applications are accepted on a rolling basis; go here for more details.
  • The AMR Action Fund is open on an ongoing basis to proposals for funding of Phase 2 / Phase 3 antibacterial therapeutics. Per its charter, the fund prioritizes investment in treatments that address a pathogen prioritized by the WHO, the CDC and/or other public health entities that: (i) are novel (e.g., absence of known cross-resistance, novel targets, new chemical classes, or new mechanisms of action); and/or (ii) have significant differentiated clinical utility (e.g., differentiated innovation that provides clinical value versus standard of care to prescribers and patients, such as safety/tolerability, oral formulation, different spectrum of activity); and (iii) reduce patient mortality. It is also expected that such agents would have the potential to strongly address the likely requirements for delinked Pull incentives such as the UK (NHS England) subscription pilot and the PASTEUR Act in the US. Submit queries to contact@amractionfund.com.
  • INCATE (Incubator for Antibacterial Therapies in Europe) is an early-stage funding vehicle supporting innovation vs. drug-resistant bacterial infections. The fund provides advice, community, and non-dilutive funding (€10k in Stage I and up to €250k in Stage II) to support early-stage ventures in creating the evidence and building the team needed to get next-level funding. Details and contacts on their website (https://www.incate.net/).
  • These things aren’t sources of funds but would help you develop funding applications
    • The Global AMR R&D Hub’s dynamic dashboard (link) summarizes the global clinical development pipeline, incentives for AMR R&D, and investors/investments in AMR R&D. See also the 7 Feb 2026 newsletter (“The global funding pipeline, 2017-2023: A review”) about an excellent deep dive by the Hub team into patterns of funding over time.
    • Antimicrobial Resistance Research and Innovation in Australia is an actively updated summary that covers Australia’s AMR research and patent landscape. It is provided via collaboration between The Lens (an ambitious project seeking to discover, analyse, and map global innovation knowledge) and CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research). Lots to explore here!
    • Diagnostic developers would find valuable guidance in this 6-part series on in vitro diagnostic (IVD) development. Sponsored by CARB-X, C-CAMP, and FIND, it pulls together real-life insights into a succinct set of tutorials.
  • In addition to the lists provided by the Global AMR R&D Hub, you might also be interested in my most current lists of R&D incentives (link) and priority pathogens (link).
]]> EUR 20m funding for next-gen diagnostics for LRTIs (Novo Nordisk Foundation) https://amr.solutions/2026/05/28/eur-20m-funding-for-next-gen-diagnostics-for-lrtis-novo-nordisk-foundation/ Thu, 28 May 2026 17:03:42 +0000 https://amr.solutions/?p=25559

Dear All:

I have just learned of a recently opened grant program from NNF (Novo Nordisk Foundation) that seeks to fund early-stage proof-of-concept on rapid, minimally invasive and affordable testing for LRTIs ((Lower Respiratory Tract Infections) at the point-of-care in global settings. The grant program actually opened just after ESCMID and I missed the announcement … apologies! It’s a substantial funding opportunity … here are the key details:

  • Website: https://novonordiskfonden.dk/en/grant/challenge-programme-2027-advancing-next-generation-amr-diagnostics-for-lower-respiratory-tract-infections/
  • What type of program is eliglble?
    • “… goal of this programme is to provide a foundation for solutions that enable minimally invasive, direct-from-specimen rapid diagnosis of LRTIs“
    • “Projects which are mainly focused on surveillance, establishment/maintaining infrastructure, and clinical trial(s) will not be considered”
    • Creativity is encouraged: The RFP mentions ideas such as technologic advancement (e.g., microfluidics), use of biomarkers, and data mining to find new correlates
  • Who is eligible?
    • “… research must be anchored at a research institution or non-profit organisation, and that for-profit product development/optimisation is out of scope for this call.”
    • “The main applicant must be an independent tenured/tenure-track researcher with their own research group, employed at a European university, hospital, or non-profit research organisation” Note that European is defined here as European Union, Schengen Area plus the United Kingdom).
    • There can be as many as 4 collaborators (1 main applicant + 3 co-applicants)
    • The co-applicants can be anywhere in the world but importantly, at least one of the 4 collaborators must be at a Danish, defined as ” 75% employed and have their research group at a Danish university, hospital, or non-profit research organisation.”
  • How big are the grants?
    • The program has a “total budget of up to DKK 150 million (ca. EUR 20 million)” that is available for grants of “up to DKK 30 – 75 million (ca. EUR 4 – 10 million) for projects of 6 years duration.”
  • What are the timelines?
    • It’s a 2-step dance: Stage 1 (now open) requests an expression of interest; Stage 2 will be an invitation to submit a comprehensive application
    • Stage 1 EOIs are due by 7 October 2026 at 2:00pm (Copenhagen time)
    • Results would be announced for Stage 1 in December 2026 and for Stage 2 in June 2027.
  • To learn more:
    • There will be an informational webinar on 9 June 2026: Register here.
    • Until then, questions can be submitted to challenge@novo.dk; you should use the name of the call “Advancing Next Generation AMR diagnostics for LRTIs” for the subject line.


Very exciting .. this is a program with sufficient scope and and funding to really make a difference! Well done, Team NNF!

All best wishes, –jr

John H. Rex, MD | Chief Medical Officer, F2G Ltd. | Operating Partner, Advent Life Sciences. Follow me on Twitter: @JohnRex_NewAbx. See past newsletters and subscribe for the future: https://amr.solutions/blog/. All opinions are my own.

John’s Top Recurring Meetings
Virtual meetings are easy to attend, but regular attendance at annual in-person events is the key to building your network and gaining deeper insight. My personal favorites for such in-person meetings are below. Of particular value for developers, the small meeting format of BEAM’s AMR Conference (March) and GAMRIC (September-October; formerly, the ESCMID-ASM conference series) creates excellent global networking. IDWeek (October) and ECCMID (April) are much larger meetings but also provide opportunities for networking with a substantial, focused audience via their Pipeline sessions. Hope to see you there!

  • [UPDATED INFO] 22-24 Sep 2026 (Lisbon, Portugal): The 2nd GAMRIC, the Global AMR Innovators Conference (London, UK). Formerly the ESCMID-ASM (or ASM-ESCMID depending on location) Joint Conference on Drug Development for AMR, 2026 will be the 11th year for this series that is now under the joint sponsorship of CARB-X, ESCMID, BEAM Alliance, GARDP, LifeArc, Boston University, and AMR.Solutions. The ongoing series employs the successful format of prior meetings with a single-track meeting and substantial networking time. The 2025 meeting was a sell-out success: a written summary is here and the videos are here. Registration for the 2026 meeting is now open and the near-final program is here: in addition to a keynote lecture by Karen Bush on the threat to beta-lactams due to the emergence of PBP3 mutations, there are sessions on funding, access, program design for narrow-spectrum agents such as phage, development for pediatrics, and more. The main abstract submission window is closed but late-breaker abstracts will be accepted 8-22 July 2026.
  • 21-24 Oct 2026 (Washington, DC, USA): IDWeek 2026, the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. I would expect the program to continue to provide a substantial opportunity to present a product to a large audience (see also adjacent note about ESCMID) as well as opportunities to present at an IDWeek Pipeline Session.
  • 23-24 Mar 2027 (Basel, Switzerland): The 10th AMR Conference (3-4 Mar 2026) is now over and offered a rich program that included a 10-year retrospective (we’ve done a lot!), regulatory updates, discussions of how to pursue development in China, and much more … in addition to being a superb opportunity for networking! I am told the session videos will soon be available on the conference website.
  • 9-13 April 2027 (Stockholm, Sweden): ESCMID Global 2027, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Details won’t be out for some months, but the website is here. I do know that the meeting schedule will again include a Science Policy Forum on Friday 9 April 2027 (see here the newsletter about the 2026 science policy forum) and all who are interested in Pull incentives and the antibiotic ecosystem should plan to be there!)..

  Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:

  • 4-8 June 2026 (Washington, DC): ASM Microbe, the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. The meeting format is evolving and next year will combine 3 meetings (ASM Health, ASM Applied and Environmental Microbiology, and ASM Mechanism Discovery) into one event. Go here for details.
  • 11-12 Jun 2026 (Washington, DC): The Second Annual Unite for Sepsis Symposium, presented by the Sepsis Alliance. The event seeks to accelerate progress in sepsis research and care. Go here for details and to register.
  • 22-24 Sep 2026 GAMRIC (Lisbon, Portugal), the Global AMR Innovators Conference (London, UK; formerly the ESCMID-ASM Joint Conference on Drug Development for AMR). See list of Top Recurring meetings, above..
  • [REGISTRATION IS OPEN] 10-18 Oct 2026 (Annecy, France, residential in-person program): ICARe (Interdisciplinary Course on Antibiotics and Resistance) … and 2026 will be the 10th year for this program. Patrice Courvalin orchestrates content with the support of an all-star scientific committee and faculty. The resulting soup-to-nuts training covers all aspects of antimicrobials, is very intense, and routinely gets rave reviews! Registration for 2026 is now open and runs through June 21, 2026. Go here to register!
  • 21-24 Oct 2026 (Washington, DC, USA): IDWeek 2026. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • 10-13 November 2026 (Madrid, Spain): The International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID) has announced its 21st International Congress on Infectious Diseases (ICID). Register and view the preliminary program here (Early bird closes 30 July 2026); abstract deadline is 28 April 2026.
  • 23-24 Mar 2027 (Basel, Switzerland): The 11th AMR Conference sponsored by the BEAM Alliance. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • 9-13 April 2027 (Stockholm, Sweden): ESCMID Global 2026, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. See Recurring Meetings list, above.
  • ??? Mar 2028 (yes, that’s 2028, with location TBD): The 2028 Gordon Research Conference (GRC, https://www.grc.org/) entitled “Antibacterials of Tomorrow to Combat the Global Threat of Antimicrobial Resistance” and its related Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) for young doctoral and post-doctoral researchers will be sometime in March 2028. The organizers hope to coordinate dates and location with the 2028 BEAM-AMR meeting. Details to follow — mark your calendar!

Self-paced courses, online training materials, and other reference materials:

Current funding opportunities

  • CARB-X have had one funding round (8-22 April 2026); a further round is expected during 4Q 2026. There are 4 funding themes for these rounds as below.
    • Direct-acting therapeutics for infections caused by Gram-negative bacteria
    • Novel Chemistry for AMR Challenge – target-based therapeutics.
    • Non-vaccine approaches to prevent neonatal sepsis
    • Diagnostics for neonatal sepsis
  • The Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027 includes at least 3 calls of interest within its Cluster 1 — see the list below.  The application window starts 10 Feb 2026 and closes on 16 Apr 2026. See also the 12 Dec 2025 newsletter about the call. Note as well that there calls for agents to prevent and/or treat viral infections.
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2027-01-DISEASE-08: Development of innovative antimicrobials against pathogens resistant to antimicrobials
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2027-02-IND-02: Portable point-of-care diagnostics
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01-DISEASE-03:Advancing research on the prevention, diagnosis, and management of post-infection long-term conditions. 
  • ENABLE-2 has continuously open calls for both its Hit-to-Lead program as well as its Hit Identification/Validation incubator. Applicants must be academics and non-profits in Europe due to restrictions from the funders. Applications are evaluated in cycles … see the website for details on current timing for reviews. 
  • BARDA’s long-running BAA (Broad Agency Announcement) for medical countermeasures (MCMs) for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats, pandemic influenza, and emerging infectious diseases is now BAA-23-100-SOL-00004 and offers support for both antibacterial and antifungal agents (as well as antivirals, antitoxins, diagnostics, and more). Note especially these Areas of Interest: Area 3.1 (MDR Bacteria and Biothreat Pathogens), Area 3.2 (MDR Fungal Infections), and Area 7.2 (Antibiotic Resistance Diagnostics for Priority Bacterial Pathogens). Although prior BAAs used a rolling cycle of 4 deadlines/year, the updated BAA released 26 Sep 2023 has a 5-year application period that ends 25 Sep 2028 and is open to applicants regardless of location: BARDA seeks the best science from anywhere in the world! See also this newsletter for further comments on the BAA and its areas of interest.
  • HERA Invest was launched August 2023 with €100 million to support innovative EU-based SMEs in the early and late phases of clinical trials. Part of the InvestEU program supporting sustainable investment, innovation, and job creation in Europe, HERA Invest is open for application to companies developing medical countermeasures that address one of the following cross-border health threats: (i) Pathogens with pandemic or epidemic potential, (ii) Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) threats originating from accidental or deliberate release, and (iii) Antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Non-dilutive venture loans covering up to 50% of investment costs are available. A closing date is not posted insofar as I can see — applications are accepted on a rolling basis; go here for more details.
  • The AMR Action Fund is open on an ongoing basis to proposals for funding of Phase 2 / Phase 3 antibacterial therapeutics. Per its charter, the fund prioritizes investment in treatments that address a pathogen prioritized by the WHO, the CDC and/or other public health entities that: (i) are novel (e.g., absence of known cross-resistance, novel targets, new chemical classes, or new mechanisms of action); and/or (ii) have significant differentiated clinical utility (e.g., differentiated innovation that provides clinical value versus standard of care to prescribers and patients, such as safety/tolerability, oral formulation, different spectrum of activity); and (iii) reduce patient mortality. It is also expected that such agents would have the potential to strongly address the likely requirements for delinked Pull incentives such as the UK (NHS England) subscription pilot and the PASTEUR Act in the US. Submit queries to contact@amractionfund.com.
  • INCATE (Incubator for Antibacterial Therapies in Europe) is an early-stage funding vehicle supporting innovation vs. drug-resistant bacterial infections. The fund provides advice, community, and non-dilutive funding (€10k in Stage I and up to €250k in Stage II) to support early-stage ventures in creating the evidence and building the team needed to get next-level funding. Details and contacts on their website (https://www.incate.net/).
  • These things aren’t sources of funds but would help you develop funding applications
    • The Global AMR R&D Hub’s dynamic dashboard (link) summarizes the global clinical development pipeline, incentives for AMR R&D, and investors/investments in AMR R&D. See also the 7 Feb 2026 newsletter (“The global funding pipeline, 2017-2023: A review”) about an excellent deep dive by the Hub team into patterns of funding over time.
    • Antimicrobial Resistance Research and Innovation in Australia is an actively updated summary that covers Australia’s AMR research and patent landscape. It is provided via collaboration between The Lens (an ambitious project seeking to discover, analyse, and map global innovation knowledge) and CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research). Lots to explore here!
    • Diagnostic developers would find valuable guidance in this 6-part series on in vitro diagnostic (IVD) development. Sponsored by CARB-X, C-CAMP, and FIND, it pulls together real-life insights into a succinct set of tutorials.
  • In addition to the lists provided by the Global AMR R&D Hub, you might also be interested in my most current lists of R&D incentives (link) and priority pathogens (link).
]]> Economic modeling of the value of rapid diagnostics https://amr.solutions/2026/05/27/economic-modeling-of-the-value-of-rapid-diagnostics/ Wed, 27 May 2026 21:11:11 +0000 https://amr.solutions/?p=25519

Dear All (and again with thanks to Arjun Srinivasan for co-authoring this pair of newsletters):

In parallel with the newsletter discussing a recent paper on the impact of rapid antimicrobial susceptibility testing (27 May 2026 newsletter, “Limits on measuring the impact of rapid AST”), we have release of an exceptionally well-done classic economic approach showing that rapid diagnostics rapid could save thousands of lives per year and hundreds of millions of dollars in health care savings in the G7. The comprehensive economic analysis goes beyond AST devices to cover both diagnostics that (i) identify the pathogen and/or (ii) provide AST data. Here are the links you need:

  • (the report itself) Hassan S, Hamlyn T, Fong H, Hampson G. 2026. The Value of Fast Diagnostics in Time-Critical Infections. OHE Contract Research Report, London: Office of Health Economics. Available at: https://www.ohe.org/publications/the-value-of-fast-diagnostics-in-time-critical-infections/
  • (related press release) “First-of-its-Kind Health Economic Analysis Shows Early Use of Fast Diagnostics in Sepsis Care Could Save Thousands of Lives and Reduce Health System Costs Across G7 Countries.” Available at https://www.biomerieux.com/us/en/journalists/press-releases/health-economic-analysis-sepsis-g7.html
    • As the press release makes clear, the study was sponsored by Biomérieux. But, the analysis is not specific to their products — rather the results would apply to any tools in the general category of rapid tests for either organism identification or susceptibility testing.
  • And these two for context:
    • 18 Jun 2025 newsletter, “Extending STEDI to diagnostics: STRIDES”:  We’ll mention this again below as an example of ongoing work that will build on the ideas in the OHE report.
    • 9 Apr 2026 newsletter: “GO-Dx: Global One Health Diagnostics Access Compact”: And, this newsletter discusses an industry-wide approach to ensuring that diagnostics, the cornerstones of both surveillance and proper antibiotic utilization, are accessible and utilized

In brief, this report uses a decision tree-based analysis to estimate outcomes for adults with bloodstream infections where are at high risk of progressing to sepsis. Note that the timeframe for the analysis is 13 months: 1 month of hospitalization and then a 1-year follow-up period:

OHE analysis of the impact of rapid diagnostics, model flow chart

Source: Figure 1 from the OHE paper.

The modeling considers differences in clinical outcomes and cost for rapid diagnostics vs. current standard of care (SOC) tools for diagnosis and AST for these at-risk patients based on these assumptions regarding the difference in time for these tools:

OHE analysis of the impact of rapid diagnostics, model flow chart

Source: Figure 2 from the OHE paper based on data from Peri AM et al. (BMC ID 2022, doi: 10.1186/s12879-022-07772-x), Schifman RB et al. (Arch Pathology Lab Med 2015, doi: 10.5858/arpa.2014-0258-CP), Yuceel-Timur I et al. (JAC 2024, 10.1093/jac/dkae280), and Caspar Y et al. (Eur J Clin Micro ID, 2024, doi: 10.1007/s10096-024-04820-z).

To make the analysis concrete in economic terms, the analysis focuses on data for 7 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, and USA). The potential for both clinical impact and health care savings was substantial. Shown here are the results for Japan and US:

OHE, QALY and dollar value of rapid diagnostics in Japan and the US

At left (Figure 4 from the OHE paper), we have population-level estimates of the number of QALYs gained (top-bar, light blue) and then the # of patients in whom a long-term consequence of sepsis is avoided (“averted LTC”, see list of LTCs in the decision tree figure, above)), # of averted deaths, and finally # of averted cases of sepsis. At right (Figure 5), we have a cost-savings estimate both at the population level (green gar) and per patient (orange line).
 
Overall, rapid identification and AST devices were predicted to have costs savings ranging from EUR 500/patient (Canada) to EUR 3,800/patient (Japan). When scaled up to the population level, annual national savings were predicted to range from EUR 26m (Canada) to EUR 2.5b (United States). The authors explain that:

  • “The improvements are achieved through shortening time to appropriate treatment and reducing the number of BSI patients progressing to sepsis and septic shock.
  • “In the longer term, fewer patients are projected to experience long-term complications related to sepsis, resulting in further savings in readmission and long-term management of these conditions.” 

The results were consistent across the 7 countries but (no surprise) differed in magnitude due to:

  • Differences in sepsis progression rates (higher in Japan due to an older population)
  • Differences in costs of acute care avoided (greater in the United States)
  • Differences in the size of the high‑risk BSI population.
  • Differences in how sepsis and BSI cases are coded in national databases.

 
Impressive! As discussed in the companion newsletter (the 27 May 2026 Banerjee paper newsletter entitled “Limits on measuring the impact of rapid antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST)”), this type of modeling is going to be our best approach to estimating the value of improved identification and AST systems as it is not reasonable to expect to be able to measure these differences in clinical trials for the reasons discussed in the companion newsletter.
 
And this is certainly a springboard for future work. Think about the kind of papers we now have on the economics of AMR in general:

  • 29 Nov 2022: “Impact of PASTEUR: 9.9m lives saved, ROI of 125:1”
  • 8 Dec 2022: “Lives saved + ROI of PASTEUR-like pull in Canada, UK, EU, Japan!”
  • 27 Sep 2024: “Without action, AMR costs go from $66b to $159b/yr by 2050”
  • 14 Aug 2025: “$ Impact of AMR in your country: Interactive web tool!”

 
We’re already starting to see bridging from therapeutics to diagnostics with the work on STRIDES (18 Jun 2025, “Extending STEDI to diagnostics: STRIDES”) and as well the recent conversation on the value of diagnostics during last year’s Panmure House workshop (17 Feb 2026 newsletter).  We certainly look forward to more of this type of work in future. Well done to the team at OHE for organizing such an exhaustive analysis!
 
Best wishes,
 
John & Arjun
 
John H. Rex, MD | Chief Medical Officer, F2G Ltd. | Operating Partner, Advent Life Sciences. Follow me on Twitter: @JohnRex_NewAbx. See past newsletters and subscribe for the future: https://amr.solutions/blog/. All opinions are my own.
 
Arjun Srinivasan, MD | Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Joint Commission | formerly, Deputy Director, Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, US CDC | Follow me at linkedin.com/in/arjun-srinivasan-28951b355. All opinions are my own.

John’s Top Recurring Meetings
Virtual meetings are easy to attend, but regular attendance at annual in-person events is the key to building your network and gaining deeper insight. My personal favorites for such in-person meetings are below. Of particular value for developers, the small meeting format of BEAM’s AMR Conference (March) and GAMRIC (September-October; formerly, the ESCMID-ASM conference series) creates excellent global networking. IDWeek (October) and ECCMID (April) are much larger meetings but also provide opportunities for networking with a substantial, focused audience via their Pipeline sessions. Hope to see you there!

  • [UPDATED INFO] 22-24 Sep 2026 (Lisbon, Portugal): The 2nd GAMRIC, the Global AMR Innovators Conference (London, UK). Formerly the ESCMID-ASM (or ASM-ESCMID depending on location) Joint Conference on Drug Development for AMR, 2026 will be the 11th year for this series that is now under the joint sponsorship of CARB-X, ESCMID, BEAM Alliance, GARDP, LifeArc, Boston University, and AMR.Solutions. The ongoing series employs the successful format of prior meetings with a single-track meeting and substantial networking time. The 2025 meeting was a sell-out success: a written summary is here and the videos are here. Registration for the 2026 meeting is now open and the near-final program is here: in addition to a keynote lecture by Karen Bush on the threat to beta-lactams due to the emergence of PBP3 mutations, there are sessions on funding, access, program design for narrow-spectrum agents such as phage, development for pediatrics, and more. The main abstract submission window is closed but late-breaker abstracts will be accepted 8-22 July 2026.
  • 21-24 Oct 2026 (Washington, DC, USA): IDWeek 2026, the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. I would expect the program to continue to provide a substantial opportunity to present a product to a large audience (see also adjacent note about ESCMID) as well as opportunities to present at an IDWeek Pipeline Session.
  • 23-24 Mar 2027 (Basel, Switzerland): The 10th AMR Conference (3-4 Mar 2026) is now over and offered a rich program that included a 10-year retrospective (we’ve done a lot!), regulatory updates, discussions of how to pursue development in China, and much more … in addition to being a superb opportunity for networking! I am told the session videos will soon be available on the conference website.
  • 9-13 April 2027 (Stockholm, Sweden): ESCMID Global 2027, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Details won’t be out for some months, but the website is here. I do know that the meeting schedule will again include a Science Policy Forum on Friday 9 April 2027 (see here the newsletter about the 2026 science policy forum) and all who are interested in Pull incentives and the antibiotic ecosystem should plan to be there!)..

  Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:

  • 4-8 June 2026 (Washington, DC): ASM Microbe, the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. The meeting format is evolving and next year will combine 3 meetings (ASM Health, ASM Applied and Environmental Microbiology, and ASM Mechanism Discovery) into one event. Go here for details.
  • 11-12 Jun 2026 (Washington, DC): The Second Annual Unite for Sepsis Symposium, presented by the Sepsis Alliance. The event seeks to accelerate progress in sepsis research and care. Go here for details and to register.
  • 22-24 Sep 2026 GAMRIC (Lisbon, Portugal), the Global AMR Innovators Conference (London, UK; formerly the ESCMID-ASM Joint Conference on Drug Development for AMR). See list of Top Recurring meetings, above..
  • [REGISTRATION IS OPEN] 10-18 Oct 2026 (Annecy, France, residential in-person program): ICARe (Interdisciplinary Course on Antibiotics and Resistance) … and 2026 will be the 10th year for this program. Patrice Courvalin orchestrates content with the support of an all-star scientific committee and faculty. The resulting soup-to-nuts training covers all aspects of antimicrobials, is very intense, and routinely gets rave reviews! Registration for 2026 is now open and runs through June 21, 2026. Go here to register!
  • 21-24 Oct 2026 (Washington, DC, USA): IDWeek 2026. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • 10-13 November 2026 (Madrid, Spain): The International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID) has announced its 21st International Congress on Infectious Diseases (ICID). Register and view the preliminary program here (Early bird closes 30 July 2026); abstract deadline is 28 April 2026.
  • 23-24 Mar 2027 (Basel, Switzerland): The 11th AMR Conference sponsored by the BEAM Alliance. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • 9-13 April 2027 (Stockholm, Sweden): ESCMID Global 2026, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. See Recurring Meetings list, above.
  • ??? Mar 2028 (yes, that’s 2028, with location TBD): The 2028 Gordon Research Conference (GRC, https://www.grc.org/) entitled “Antibacterials of Tomorrow to Combat the Global Threat of Antimicrobial Resistance” and its related Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) for young doctoral and post-doctoral researchers will be sometime in March 2028. The organizers hope to coordinate dates and location with the 2028 BEAM-AMR meeting. Details to follow — mark your calendar!

Self-paced courses, online training materials, and other reference materials:

Current funding opportunities

  • CARB-X have had one funding round (8-22 April 2026); a further round is expected during 4Q 2026. There are 4 funding themes for these rounds as below.
    • Direct-acting therapeutics for infections caused by Gram-negative bacteria
    • Novel Chemistry for AMR Challenge – target-based therapeutics.
    • Non-vaccine approaches to prevent neonatal sepsis
    • Diagnostics for neonatal sepsis
  • The Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027 includes at least 3 calls of interest within its Cluster 1 — see the list below.  The application window starts 10 Feb 2026 and closes on 16 Apr 2026. See also the 12 Dec 2025 newsletter about the call. Note as well that there calls for agents to prevent and/or treat viral infections.
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2027-01-DISEASE-08: Development of innovative antimicrobials against pathogens resistant to antimicrobials
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2027-02-IND-02: Portable point-of-care diagnostics
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01-DISEASE-03:Advancing research on the prevention, diagnosis, and management of post-infection long-term conditions. 
  • ENABLE-2 has continuously open calls for both its Hit-to-Lead program as well as its Hit Identification/Validation incubator. Applicants must be academics and non-profits in Europe due to restrictions from the funders. Applications are evaluated in cycles … see the website for details on current timing for reviews. 
  • BARDA’s long-running BAA (Broad Agency Announcement) for medical countermeasures (MCMs) for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats, pandemic influenza, and emerging infectious diseases is now BAA-23-100-SOL-00004 and offers support for both antibacterial and antifungal agents (as well as antivirals, antitoxins, diagnostics, and more). Note especially these Areas of Interest: Area 3.1 (MDR Bacteria and Biothreat Pathogens), Area 3.2 (MDR Fungal Infections), and Area 7.2 (Antibiotic Resistance Diagnostics for Priority Bacterial Pathogens). Although prior BAAs used a rolling cycle of 4 deadlines/year, the updated BAA released 26 Sep 2023 has a 5-year application period that ends 25 Sep 2028 and is open to applicants regardless of location: BARDA seeks the best science from anywhere in the world! See also this newsletter for further comments on the BAA and its areas of interest.
  • HERA Invest was launched August 2023 with €100 million to support innovative EU-based SMEs in the early and late phases of clinical trials. Part of the InvestEU program supporting sustainable investment, innovation, and job creation in Europe, HERA Invest is open for application to companies developing medical countermeasures that address one of the following cross-border health threats: (i) Pathogens with pandemic or epidemic potential, (ii) Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) threats originating from accidental or deliberate release, and (iii) Antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Non-dilutive venture loans covering up to 50% of investment costs are available. A closing date is not posted insofar as I can see — applications are accepted on a rolling basis; go here for more details.
  • The AMR Action Fund is open on an ongoing basis to proposals for funding of Phase 2 / Phase 3 antibacterial therapeutics. Per its charter, the fund prioritizes investment in treatments that address a pathogen prioritized by the WHO, the CDC and/or other public health entities that: (i) are novel (e.g., absence of known cross-resistance, novel targets, new chemical classes, or new mechanisms of action); and/or (ii) have significant differentiated clinical utility (e.g., differentiated innovation that provides clinical value versus standard of care to prescribers and patients, such as safety/tolerability, oral formulation, different spectrum of activity); and (iii) reduce patient mortality. It is also expected that such agents would have the potential to strongly address the likely requirements for delinked Pull incentives such as the UK (NHS England) subscription pilot and the PASTEUR Act in the US. Submit queries to contact@amractionfund.com.
  • INCATE (Incubator for Antibacterial Therapies in Europe) is an early-stage funding vehicle supporting innovation vs. drug-resistant bacterial infections. The fund provides advice, community, and non-dilutive funding (€10k in Stage I and up to €250k in Stage II) to support early-stage ventures in creating the evidence and building the team needed to get next-level funding. Details and contacts on their website (https://www.incate.net/).
  • These things aren’t sources of funds but would help you develop funding applications
    • The Global AMR R&D Hub’s dynamic dashboard (link) summarizes the global clinical development pipeline, incentives for AMR R&D, and investors/investments in AMR R&D. See also the 7 Feb 2026 newsletter (“The global funding pipeline, 2017-2023: A review”) about an excellent deep dive by the Hub team into patterns of funding over time.
    • Antimicrobial Resistance Research and Innovation in Australia is an actively updated summary that covers Australia’s AMR research and patent landscape. It is provided via collaboration between The Lens (an ambitious project seeking to discover, analyse, and map global innovation knowledge) and CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research). Lots to explore here!
    • Diagnostic developers would find valuable guidance in this 6-part series on in vitro diagnostic (IVD) development. Sponsored by CARB-X, C-CAMP, and FIND, it pulls together real-life insights into a succinct set of tutorials.
  • In addition to the lists provided by the Global AMR R&D Hub, you might also be interested in my most current lists of R&D incentives (link) and priority pathogens (link).
]]> Limits on measuring the impact of rapid antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) https://amr.solutions/2026/05/27/limits-on-measuring-the-impact-of-rapid-antimicrobial-susceptibility-testing-ast/ Wed, 27 May 2026 20:55:55 +0000 https://amr.solutions/?p=25514

Dear All (and with thanks to Arjun Srinivasan for co-authoring this wonkish newsletter — prepare yourself! Know also that we’ve written a parallel newsletter entitled “Economic modeling of the value of rapid diagnostics” that discusses the use of modeling to estimate the value of diagnostics in general):

Driven by ongoing work to encourage use as part of good medical practice and stewardship, discussions of the value of diagnostics have been increasingly prominent in past issues of this newsletter:

  • 18 Jun 2025: “Extending STEDI to diagnostics: STRIDES”
  • 4 Oct 2025: “WHO: Reviews of antibacterial therapeutics and diagnostics”
  • 17 Feb 2026: “Workshop on diagnostics: Can we drive use by making value visible?”
  • 9 Apr 2026: “GO-Dx: Global One Health Diagnostics Access Compact”

While a lot of this discussion is focused on simply ensuring access to diagnostics (any diagnostic!), the push for use of diagnostics would be greatly aided by data showing that their use makes a difference in clinical outcomes and improved health system efficiencies. And as a build on that, the idea that rapid initiation of effective therapy improves outcomes drives a push for rapid AST. It would all seem to make perfect sense: the mortality of serious infections can be reduced by an effective antibiotic and this would imply benefits from rapid adjustments to antibiotic therapy (if needed).

Perhaps surprisingly, however, studies of the value of rapid AST have consistently struggled to demonstrate this theoretical value. A recently published study sponsored by the ARLG (Antibiotic Resistance Leadership Group) was both a very good effort to generate such data and a demonstration of the limitations on randomized demonstrations of the utility of diagnostics. To follow the discussion, here are the links you need: 

  • Papers evaluating the clinical impact of rapid AST methods:
    • Banerjee R et al. Fast Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing for Gram-Negative Bacteremia: The FAST Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA. 2026, doi: 10.1001/jama.2026.5487. This article prompted this newsletter. It concludes that “Among patients with gram-negative bacilli BSIs, rapid blood culture AST was not superior to standard testing by DOOR.”
    • Srinivasan A. A Multinational Trial of Rapid Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing: Is FASTer Better? JAMA. 2026, doi: 10.1001/jama.2026.5504. Accompanying editorial by Arjun, co-author of this newsletter.
    • Anton-Vazquez V et al. Rapid versus standard antimicrobial susceptibility testing to guide treatment of bloodstream infection. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2021, doi: 10.1002/14651858.cd013235.pub2. A Cochrane review that concludes “The theoretical benefits of rapid susceptibility testing have not been demonstrated to directly improve mortality, time-to-discharge, or time-to-appropriate antibiotic in these randomized studies.”
    • A comparison of six recent prospective studies of rapid AST (Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing) methods. With Banerjee 2026, there are six such studies. This is a comparative summary that John generated with the assistance of one of the AI models.
  • Papers evaluating the clinical impact of delayed antibiotic therapy:
    • Kumar A. Duration of hypotension before initiation of effective antimicrobial therapy is the critical determinant of survival in human septic shock. Crit Care Med. 2006;34(6):1589–96, doi: 10.1097/01.ccm.0000217961.75225.e9. A classic paper on this topic – one of my favorites.
    • Zasowski EJ et al. A Systematic Review of the Effect of Delayed Appropriate Antibiotic Treatment on the Outcomes of Patients with Severe Bacterial Infections. Chest. 2020;158(3):929–38, doi: 10.1016/j.chest.2020.03.087. A recent, well-written systematic review of the literature on this topic.
  • Papers evaluating the impact of parachutes on gravitational injury:
    • What? Yes, you read that correctly — this is not an April Fool’s Day joke or a review from The Onion! We’ll make use of these papers when get to topics 2 and 3, below!
    • Smith GCS, Pell JP. Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: Systematic review of randomised controlled trials. BMJ. 2003;327:1459–61, doi: 10.1136/bmj.327.7429.1459. No surprise — a systematic review failed to find any RCTs showing that parachutes work.
    • Yeh RW et al. Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft: randomized controlled trial. BMJ. 2018, doi: 10.1136/bmj.k5094. To address the gap identified by Smith & Pell, we’ll see that Yeh et al. conducted an RCT … details below!

So, we’re off on a tour of these 3 topics:

  1. Why did Banerjee 2026 conclude that “Among patients with gram-negative bacilli bloodstream infections, rapid blood culture AST was not superior to standard testing by DOOR.”?
  2. So, does time to prompt initiation of antimicrobial therapy actually matter?
  3. What does all this say about showing superiority outcomes in studies of AST (whether rapid or not) and of antimicrobial agents?

Here we go!

Topic 1: Why did Banerjee 2026 conclude that “Among patients with gram-negative bacilli bloodstream infections, rapid blood culture AST was not superior to standard testing by DOOR.”?

The study by Banerjee 2026 was a substantial and well-considered effort to show the value of rapid AST. Building on challenges with prior studies, its key features were: 

  • It was an open-label randomized clinical trial comparing rapid AST with standard AST as guidance for antibiotic therapy in patients with bloodstream infection due to Gram-negative bacilli (E. coli, etc.)
  • It was conducted at 7 medical centers in countries with a high endemicity for resistant organisms: Greece (2), India (1), Israel (3), and Spain (1).
  • It was a big study: it randomized 850 subjects: 413 to rapid AST, 437 to standard AST
  • Rather than a blunt endpoint of all-cause mortality, its primary outcome was focused on overall clinical response by use of a desirability of outcome ranking (DOOR, Evans 2015) at day 30 based on 3 categories that are ranked from better to worse: (i) alive without deleterious events, (ii) alive with deleterious events, and (iii) death.

 Frustratingly, the authors found that:

  • Rapid AST did not improve the likelihood of a more favorable DOOR category outcome.
  • Rapid AST did reduce the time to antibiotic escalation or de-escalation, but
  • … there was no difference in time to effective antibiotic therapy.

The lack of impact of rapid AST on time to effective antibiotic therapy is almost certainly the core issue and can be seen in Figure 4 from the paper where we have antibiotic therapy over time for the two groups. The bottom two bars in each column (purple and blue) are the roll-up of overtreatment (purple) and appropriate treatment (blue): both would be expected to be effective, of course:

Walker's Figure 4, Sankey diagram of antibiotic use

To make it a little easier to see, this next figure shows the sum of appropriate treatment + overtreatment (the purple and blue bars, above. As you can see, the % on adequate therapy was essentially identical over time:

Walker, Figure 4, graph showing effective antibiotic use over time

So, that explains the lack of impact of rapid AST … effective antibiotics were used essentially equally well in both arms — or equally poorly, with INappropriate antibiotics used about 40% of the time! Eh? What is going on?

Well, the answer turns out to be related to the theme of these prior newsletters in which we explored the lack of use of newer (less toxic) antibiotics:

  • 24 Apr 2026: “DTR Gram-negative infections: Are new antibiotics making a difference?”
  • 1 Dec 2024: “The 6 meanings of ‘Lack of Access’ (UNSLAP)”
  • 7 Apr 202: “UNSLAP: You reach for the antibiotic … and it’s not there!”

While there are multiple contributing factors (most importantly, rapid molecular ASTs do not [and cannot] detect all forms of resistance), a fundamental issue noted by the authors in their discussion is the lack of access to newer (less toxic agents). Better (rapid) AST is useless if no action is possible!

As a further concern, prior analyses (e.g., Vogler S et al. Health Policy OPEN. 2024;7:100129, doi: 10.1016/j.hpopen.2024.100129) have found that modification of provider behavior requires substantial educational efforts. The manuscript does indicate that the antibiotic stewardship team at each institution would contact the provider if treatment changes were thought needed but it’s not clear how readily or rapidly that advice was utilized at the study sites.

Finally, and further obscuring any potential impact of rapid AST, over half of the subjects had infections due to organisms that were NOT highly resistant thus, they received appropriate therapy without difficulty. Stated differently, if therapy is already appropriate, rapid AST might permit de-escalation but can’t be expected to produce clinical improvement. And it thus follows that measurement of the strength of benefit from rapid AST in the subset really needing AST was diluted by / obscured by the larger pool of patients who received acceptable therapy as part of standard practice.

In summary, and although this trial did find process benefits such as reductions in time to first antibiotic change, the negative result of this trial is readily understood from lack of the ability of an AST (whether rapid or not) to alter selection of (and time to) administration of an appropriate antibiotic unless that antibiotic is available and unless providers are also motivated to act on new data. There are also practical limits on the impact of AST devices, but the foremost problem is that the better agents were often either not available or not used in the study sites!

—–
Topic 2: So, does time to prompt initiation of antimicrobial therapy actually matter? (And we’re soon going to use the bit about gravitational injury — hang in there!)

So, what does this say about the value of AST, whether rapid or not? Well, that’s a separate issue from the impact of initiation of antimicrobial therapy. Overall, there’s little doubt that prompt administration of an effective antibiotic makes a difference … and that lack of effective therapy causes bad outcomes.

The primary data on the impact of early therapy is the extensive observational literature cited above. One can also point at specific bits of data such as the impact of a single prior dose of an effective therapy early in the course of community-acquired bacterial pneumonia (Pertel et al. Effects of prior effective therapy on the efficacy of daptomycin and ceftriaxone for the treatment of community-acquired pneumonia. CID 2008;46(8):1142–51, doi: 10.1086/533441).

And if you want more proof, this population-level figure showing the case fatality rate for erysipelas (a skin infection) in Norway illustrates the dramatic effect of the introduction of first sulfas and then penicillin:

Madsen 1973 - Annotated figure showing mortality due to erysipelas

Source: Figure 6 from Madsen ST. Scarlet fever and erysipelas in Norway during the last hundred years. Infection. 1973;1(2):76–81, https://doi.org/10.1007/bf01638479. Note the timescale on the x-axis (1880 to 1960): mortality fell from a steady rate of 20-50/1,000 cases to < 1 death per million cases from the mid-1950s.
 
While the effect might be less dramatic in LMICs with limited medical resources (see the final paper by the UK AMR Review in May 2016), all serious infections progress through stages of clinical severity. Inevitably, there is a point at which it doesn’t look so bad, then it’s a bit worse, and then it’s awful, and finally it’s too late. This is obvious on its face from the pathophysiology of disease and is supported by the personal experience of anyone who’s cared for such patients.
 
And it’s here (finally!) that the two papers on parachutes to prevent gravitational injury become relevant. The first (Smith 2003) was a snarky commentary on the desire for an RCT for everything and is included mainly for completeness: “As with many interventions intended to prevent ill health, the effectiveness of parachutes has not been subjected to rigorous evaluation by using randomised controlled trials.”
 
It’s the second paper (Yeh 2018) that provides the key message about feasibility and context for RCTs in some situations. In this study, the authors measured the rate of injury or death following a jump from an aircraft (airplane or helicopter) while wearing either a parachute or an empty backpack. The twist was that the jump was from an aircraft that was parked. On the ground. Not moving. Thus (and no surprise), this randomized study of 23 subjects found that:

  • “Parachute use did not reduce death or major traumatic injury when jumping from aircraft in the first randomized evaluation of this intervention.
  • “However, the trial was only able to enroll participants on small stationary aircraft on the ground, suggesting cautious extrapolation to high altitude jumps.”

 
OK … so that’s pretty snarky … but the point is that demonstrations of superiority require a plausible difference in outcomes between the arms. At the same time, we must also always protect study subjects to the maximum extent possible, and so there are limits on plausible designs. Like the parachute study, the circumstances at Banerjee’s study sites were such that it can be seen (in retrospect) that the lack of plausible scope for improvement in most subjects obscured any improvement in the subset of patients who actually could have benefited.
 
And we now need to connect this idea to topic 3…
 
—–
Topic 3: What does all this say about showing superiority outcomes in studies of (i) AST (whether rapid or not) and (ii) antimicrobial agents?
 
Following on from parachutes in Topic 2, we now need to loop back to a perennial question: Why don’t we routinely have randomized superiority data on novel anti-infective agents or AST? And actually, is it even plausible to expect to have such data?
 
Hopefully, you’ll now understand that the answer is “No, not unless something really bad has happened!” Good (and ethical) medical practice in studies of potentially lethal infections demands that we always ensure that we are trying to deliver effective therapy to participants in both arms.
 
With respect to this idea for trials of novel therapies, please review these sources:

  • Nambiar S, Laessig K, Toerner J, Farley J, Cox E. Antibacterial drug development: challenges, recent developments, and future considerations. Clin Pharmacol Ther. 2014;96(2):147–9, doi: 10.1038/clpt.2014.116.  An excellent discussion by five colleagues from FDA of the issues with doing superiority studies.
  • 19 Sep 2020 newsletter: “In praise of non-inferiority” This newsletter, along with its associated YouTube explainer, provides a deep dive into the tension between superiority studies and non-inferiority studies.

 
And for AST (whether rapid or not), the exceptional effort by Banerjee et al. to produce such data is noteworthy and instructive. As discussed in the primary paper and the accompanying editorial, it might be possible to find a subset in which a difference could be shown, but (from Arjun’s editorial):

  • “…trying to focus rapid AST on a subset of patients where it might have clear mortality benefit seems impractical and unnecessary.
  • “Nearly every hospital in the US, and many globally (including all the hospitals in the FAST trial), have antibiotic stewardship programs focused on ensuring that patients receive optimal antibiotic therapy.
  • “If we have a tool that will help antibiotic stewardship programs support clinicians in optimizing therapy faster, an outcome that is consistent across all studies of rapid AST, should we not work toward making that tool available?
  • “The answer from a patient-centric perspective is clearly yes.”

 
—
In summary, our ability to measure the differential impact of more rapid forms of AST is always going to be limited. A difference is certain to exist for patients with rapidly progressive, severe forms of infection but modern therapeutic approaches work to reduce such differences. Further, it just doesn’t make sense to try to triage use of rapid AST as infections that seem mild at the start can progress very rapidly to death.
 
Thus, arguments around use of (rapid) AST will need to be built around economic modeling of the cost and value of different approaches. On that point, see the parallel newsletter entitled “Economic modeling of the value of rapid diagnostics”!
 
Best wishes,

John & Arjun
 
John H. Rex, MD | Chief Medical Officer, F2G Ltd. | Operating Partner, Advent Life Sciences. Follow me on Twitter: @JohnRex_NewAbx. See past newsletters and subscribe for the future: https://amr.solutions/blog/. All opinions are my own.
 
Arjun Srinivasan, MD | Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Joint Commission | formerly, Deputy Director, Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, US CDC | Follow me at linkedin.com/in/arjun-srinivasan-28951b355. All opinions are my own.

John’s Top Recurring Meetings
Virtual meetings are easy to attend, but regular attendance at annual in-person events is the key to building your network and gaining deeper insight. My personal favorites for such in-person meetings are below. Of particular value for developers, the small meeting format of BEAM’s AMR Conference (March) and GAMRIC (September-October; formerly, the ESCMID-ASM conference series) creates excellent global networking. IDWeek (October) and ECCMID (April) are much larger meetings but also provide opportunities for networking with a substantial, focused audience via their Pipeline sessions. Hope to see you there!

  • [UPDATED INFO] 22-24 Sep 2026 (Lisbon, Portugal): The 2nd GAMRIC, the Global AMR Innovators Conference (London, UK). Formerly the ESCMID-ASM (or ASM-ESCMID depending on location) Joint Conference on Drug Development for AMR, 2026 will be the 11th year for this series that is now under the joint sponsorship of CARB-X, ESCMID, BEAM Alliance, GARDP, LifeArc, Boston University, and AMR.Solutions. The ongoing series employs the successful format of prior meetings with a single-track meeting and substantial networking time. The 2025 meeting was a sell-out success: a written summary is here and the videos are here. Registration for the 2026 meeting is now open and the near-final program is here: in addition to a keynote lecture by Karen Bush on the threat to beta-lactams due to the emergence of PBP3 mutations, there are sessions on funding, access, program design for narrow-spectrum agents such as phage, development for pediatrics, and more. The main abstract submission window is closed but late-breaker abstracts will be accepted 8-22 July 2026.
  • 21-24 Oct 2026 (Washington, DC, USA): IDWeek 2026, the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. I would expect the program to continue to provide a substantial opportunity to present a product to a large audience (see also adjacent note about ESCMID) as well as opportunities to present at an IDWeek Pipeline Session.
  • 23-24 Mar 2027 (Basel, Switzerland): The 10th AMR Conference (3-4 Mar 2026) is now over and offered a rich program that included a 10-year retrospective (we’ve done a lot!), regulatory updates, discussions of how to pursue development in China, and much more … in addition to being a superb opportunity for networking! I am told the session videos will soon be available on the conference website.
  • 9-13 April 2027 (Stockholm, Sweden): ESCMID Global 2027, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Details won’t be out for some months, but the website is here. I do know that the meeting schedule will again include a Science Policy Forum on Friday 9 April 2027 (see here the newsletter about the 2026 science policy forum) and all who are interested in Pull incentives and the antibiotic ecosystem should plan to be there!)..

  Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:

  • 4-8 June 2026 (Washington, DC): ASM Microbe, the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. The meeting format is evolving and next year will combine 3 meetings (ASM Health, ASM Applied and Environmental Microbiology, and ASM Mechanism Discovery) into one event. Go here for details.
  • 11-12 Jun 2026 (Washington, DC): The Second Annual Unite for Sepsis Symposium, presented by the Sepsis Alliance. The event seeks to accelerate progress in sepsis research and care. Go here for details and to register.
  • 22-24 Sep 2026 GAMRIC (Lisbon, Portugal), the Global AMR Innovators Conference (London, UK; formerly the ESCMID-ASM Joint Conference on Drug Development for AMR). See list of Top Recurring meetings, above..
  • [REGISTRATION IS OPEN] 10-18 Oct 2026 (Annecy, France, residential in-person program): ICARe (Interdisciplinary Course on Antibiotics and Resistance) … and 2026 will be the 10th year for this program. Patrice Courvalin orchestrates content with the support of an all-star scientific committee and faculty. The resulting soup-to-nuts training covers all aspects of antimicrobials, is very intense, and routinely gets rave reviews! Registration for 2026 is now open and runs through June 21, 2026. Go here to register!
  • 21-24 Oct 2026 (Washington, DC, USA): IDWeek 2026. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • 10-13 November 2026 (Madrid, Spain): The International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID) has announced its 21st International Congress on Infectious Diseases (ICID). Register and view the preliminary program here (Early bird closes 30 July 2026); abstract deadline is 28 April 2026.
  • 23-24 Mar 2027 (Basel, Switzerland): The 11th AMR Conference sponsored by the BEAM Alliance. See list of Top Recurring meetings, above.
  • 9-13 April 2027 (Stockholm, Sweden): ESCMID Global 2026, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. See Recurring Meetings list, above.
  • ??? Mar 2028 (yes, that’s 2028, with location TBD): The 2028 Gordon Research Conference (GRC, https://www.grc.org/) entitled “Antibacterials of Tomorrow to Combat the Global Threat of Antimicrobial Resistance” and its related Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) for young doctoral and post-doctoral researchers will be sometime in March 2028. The organizers hope to coordinate dates and location with the 2028 BEAM-AMR meeting. Details to follow — mark your calendar!

Self-paced courses, online training materials, and other reference materials:

Current funding opportunities

  • CARB-X have had one funding round (8-22 April 2026); a further round is expected during 4Q 2026. There are 4 funding themes for these rounds as below.
    • Direct-acting therapeutics for infections caused by Gram-negative bacteria
    • Novel Chemistry for AMR Challenge – target-based therapeutics.
    • Non-vaccine approaches to prevent neonatal sepsis
    • Diagnostics for neonatal sepsis
  • The Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027 includes at least 3 calls of interest within its Cluster 1 — see the list below.  The application window starts 10 Feb 2026 and closes on 16 Apr 2026. See also the 12 Dec 2025 newsletter about the call. Note as well that there calls for agents to prevent and/or treat viral infections.
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2027-01-DISEASE-08: Development of innovative antimicrobials against pathogens resistant to antimicrobials
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2027-02-IND-02: Portable point-of-care diagnostics
    • HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01-DISEASE-03:Advancing research on the prevention, diagnosis, and management of post-infection long-term conditions. 
  • ENABLE-2 has continuously open calls for both its Hit-to-Lead program as well as its Hit Identification/Validation incubator. Applicants must be academics and non-profits in Europe due to restrictions from the funders. Applications are evaluated in cycles … see the website for details on current timing for reviews. 
  • BARDA’s long-running BAA (Broad Agency Announcement) for medical countermeasures (MCMs) for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats, pandemic influenza, and emerging infectious diseases is now BAA-23-100-SOL-00004 and offers support for both antibacterial and antifungal agents (as well as antivirals, antitoxins, diagnostics, and more). Note especially these Areas of Interest: Area 3.1 (MDR Bacteria and Biothreat Pathogens), Area 3.2 (MDR Fungal Infections), and Area 7.2 (Antibiotic Resistance Diagnostics for Priority Bacterial Pathogens). Although prior BAAs used a rolling cycle of 4 deadlines/year, the updated BAA released 26 Sep 2023 has a 5-year application period that ends 25 Sep 2028 and is open to applicants regardless of location: BARDA seeks the best science from anywhere in the world! See also this newsletter for further comments on the BAA and its areas of interest.
  • HERA Invest was launched August 2023 with €100 million to support innovative EU-based SMEs in the early and late phases of clinical trials. Part of the InvestEU program supporting sustainable investment, innovation, and job creation in Europe, HERA Invest is open for application to companies developing medical countermeasures that address one of the following cross-border health threats: (i) Pathogens with pandemic or epidemic potential, (ii) Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) threats originating from accidental or deliberate release, and (iii) Antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Non-dilutive venture loans covering up to 50% of investment costs are available. A closing date is not posted insofar as I can see — applications are accepted on a rolling basis; go here for more details.
  • The AMR Action Fund is open on an ongoing basis to proposals for funding of Phase 2 / Phase 3 antibacterial therapeutics. Per its charter, the fund prioritizes investment in treatments that address a pathogen prioritized by the WHO, the CDC and/or other public health entities that: (i) are novel (e.g., absence of known cross-resistance, novel targets, new chemical classes, or new mechanisms of action); and/or (ii) have significant differentiated clinical utility (e.g., differentiated innovation that provides clinical value versus standard of care to prescribers and patients, such as safety/tolerability, oral formulation, different spectrum of activity); and (iii) reduce patient mortality. It is also expected that such agents would have the potential to strongly address the likely requirements for delinked Pull incentives such as the UK (NHS England) subscription pilot and the PASTEUR Act in the US. Submit queries to contact@amractionfund.com.
  • INCATE (Incubator for Antibacterial Therapies in Europe) is an early-stage funding vehicle supporting innovation vs. drug-resistant bacterial infections. The fund provides advice, community, and non-dilutive funding (€10k in Stage I and up to €250k in Stage II) to support early-stage ventures in creating the evidence and building the team needed to get next-level funding. Details and contacts on their website (https://www.incate.net/).
  • These things aren’t sources of funds but would help you develop funding applications
    • The Global AMR R&D Hub’s dynamic dashboard (link) summarizes the global clinical development pipeline, incentives for AMR R&D, and investors/investments in AMR R&D. See also the 7 Feb 2026 newsletter (“The global funding pipeline, 2017-2023: A review”) about an excellent deep dive by the Hub team into patterns of funding over time.
    • Antimicrobial Resistance Research and Innovation in Australia is an actively updated summary that covers Australia’s AMR research and patent landscape. It is provided via collaboration between The Lens (an ambitious project seeking to discover, analyse, and map global innovation knowledge) and CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research). Lots to explore here!
    • Diagnostic developers would find valuable guidance in this 6-part series on in vitro diagnostic (IVD) development. Sponsored by CARB-X, C-CAMP, and FIND, it pulls together real-life insights into a succinct set of tutorials.
  • In addition to the lists provided by the Global AMR R&D Hub, you might also be interested in my most current lists of R&D incentives (link) and priority pathogens (link).
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