UNGA 2024 and the AMR HLM:
Pre-Meeting Reports and Post-Meeting Notes

The HLM has now happened, but I am going to keep this webpage going (at least for now) as it is useful repository. Helpful post-HLM materials include the following:

  1. The 1 Oct 2024 newsletter for my review of the events at the HLM. And for those who like to listen: Hosted by Cesar Arias, Editor-in-Chief of Antimicrobial Agents and Therapy, John and Prabha Fernandes recorded a podcast discussion of the HLM
  2. CDC’s post-UNGA blog post (also available as a .pdf of their nearly identical 4 Oct 2024 post-UNGA summary email). CDC’s summary provides informative highlights from several AMR-related side-meetings. 
  3. WHO’s 4 Oct 2024 AMR email summary. In addition to just being a good tour of WHO’s diverse array of activities, it starts with a quick overview of the HLM and then points to next steps (e.g., the November 2024 Ministerial meeting in Saudi Arabia).
  4. An excellent 9 Oct 2024 blog post from Ramanan Laxminarayan’s One Health Trust that provides a very detailed summaries of several of the side events. Lots of photos, lots of summarized commentary … really gives a good sense of the meetings.
  5. This self-explanatory paper in the November 2024 issue of Open Forum Infectious Diseases: “A Global Call to Action to Fight Antimicrobial Resistance: IDSA and ESCMID Joint White Paper” by Malani, Sharland, Clancy, and Skov on behalf of the IDSA and ESCMID executive boards. https://doi.org/10.1093/ofid/ofae522.
  6. A very thorough 8 Dec 2024 summary of the conversations in and around the HLM: “UN Meeting Highlights Antimicrobial Resistance ‘Epiphany’—Lack of Antibiotic Access Is a Key Driver” by K Schweitzer, JAMA. 2024;332(21):1776-1778. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2024.21046.
  7. The 20 May 2025 WHO Pandemic Agreement lays out a path to global mechanism for better international coordination across a range of areas, in order to strengthen the global health architecture for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. In particular, it will seek to create a mechanism for timely sharing of “materials and sequence information on pathogens with pandemic potential.” 
  8. The 2 June 2025 Hamburg Joint Statement on AMR entitled “Scaling Solutions and Financing for Antimicrobial Resistance Mitigation.” This document was created during a closed-door session at the Hamburg Sustainability Conference (HSC) 2025 hosted by the International Centre for Antimicrobial Resistance Solutions (ICARS) and ReAct Africa, bringing together stakeholders from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of France and Denmark, the World Bank, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Africa CDC, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, Wellcome, the Quadripartite Joint Secretariat (represented by WHO) and the European Commission, among others. ICARS has an excellent summary webpage about the event and the statement.
  9. [NEW] The 17 June 2025 report from Australia entitled “Fighting Superbugs: A Subscription-Style Reimbursement Mechanism to Boost Australia’s Arsenal of Antimicrobial Medicines.” This paper is the report from a Nov 2024 roundtable and builds on the call for Pull in Australia’s recently updated Health Technology Assessment (HTA) plan entitled “Accelerating Access to the Best Medicines for Australians Now and Into the Future.” See also this (webpage) about the report as well the 20 Sep 2024 newsletter entitled “AMR High-Level Meeting Draft Declaration / Australia and Canada engage on Pull models!” There is also a podcast discussing the UK’s model with David Glover, Assistant Director of Medicines Analysis at NHS England.

During the run-up to the HLM (High-Level Meeting) on AMR during UNGA 2024 (the UN General Assembly, September 2024, see the 15 Apr 2023 newsletter for details), I thought it would be useful to have a list of major reports that had been released to inform those discussions. I am sure I am going to miss things (at least initially), so please drop me a note (john.rex@amr.solutions) if you want to see something added to this list. Thanks, —jr

  • Reports (mostly) Focused on AMR related to human health
  • Manufacturing
  • Stewardship and Access
    •  22 Mar 2021: Stewardship & Access Guide
      • From CARB-X, Wellcome, And Partners, this is the definitive guide
      • The 22 Mar 2021 newsletter is the best starting point; it also includes a video chat about the new guidelines
    • Feb 2024: Equitable & Responsible Access Roadmap
  • R&D: Push, Pull, People, and Evidence for Action
    • 07 Sep 2023: Overcoming Resistance
    • 21 Sep 2023: A New Grand Bargain to Improve the Antimicrobial Market for Human Health
      • Tackles the question of “Why would any given group take action to support an antibiotic ecosystem?” from the perspective of High-Income Countries (HICs), Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs), Pharmaceutical companies, and International Organizations.
      • Webpage, report, and 5 Nov 2023 newsletter.
      • Report author: Center for Global Development (CGD)
    • 15 Nov 2023: Value and sustainability of antibiotics as essential tools for the healthcare system and people’s health
    • 08 Feb 2014: Leaving the Lab: Tracking the Decline in AMR R&D Professionals
    • 15 Feb 2024: 2024 AMR Preparedness Index Progress Report
    • 22 Feb 2024: The Economics of Antibiotic Resistance
    • 25 Mar 2024: Effective antibiotics for the Swiss health care system: today and in the future
    • 3 Apr 2024: Towards Specific Commitments and Action in the Response to Antimicrobial Resistance
    • 23 May 2024: The Lancet Series on Antimicrobial Resistance: The need for sustainable access to effective antibiotics
    • 12 Aug 2024: UK Subscription model goes live!
      • OK, it’s not a report per se but if it were it would be called “Here’s what can be done!”
      • The UK Subscription model really does set the pace for the rest of the world to follow
      • Webpage, 19 Aug 2024 newsletter
    • Aug 2024: Antibacterial pipeline trends and recommendations to enhance research and development
      • This policy brief does a good job of briefly (!) outlining 7 key points: the weak pipeline, the issues faced by developers, specific therapeutic gaps, the oral drug gap, the pediatric drug gap, the LMIC gap, and the non-traditional gap
      • Webpage, report, 1 Sep 2024 newsletter
      • Report author: WHO
    • 17 Sep 2024: Global burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance 1990–2021: a systematic analysis with forecasts to 2050
      •  The team behind the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) project brings us the sobering news that AMR will kill 39m during 2025-2050 unless we act!
      • Link to article and to the 17 Sep 2024 newsletter
      • Report author: GBD 2021 Antimicrobial Resistance Collaborators
    • 27 Sep 2024: Forecasting the Fallout from AMR: Economic Impacts of Antimicrobial Resistance in Humans
      • This paper makes the economic case for action and can be summarized as “Without action, AMR costs go from $66b/yr to $159b/yr by 2050.” The deep economics are not often analyzed — this paper does a great job of articulating the “pay now or pay later” perspective.
      • Article itself and to the 27 Sep 2024 newsletter
      • Report author: Center for Global Development
  • Reports (mostly) focused on agriculture and food chain
  • January 2024: Tackling Antimicrobial Resistance in Food and Agriculture
    • A global survey of actions being taken by the Quadripartite, the Global Leaders Group, and the various National Action Plans on AMR in agricultural and food systems.
    • Webpage, report, and 27 Jan 2024 newsletter.
    • Report author: FAO

During the run-up to UNGA 2024 and the HLM on AMR (15 Apr 2023 newsletter for details), I thought it would be useful to have a list of major reports. I am sure I am going to miss things (at least initially), so please drop me a note (john.rex@amr.solutions) if you want to see something added to this list.

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Australia calls for Subscription (“Netflix”) models: Report and podcast

Dear All, With thanks to alert reader Liam Sharkey, a post-doc in Melbourne, for the heads-up on this topic, I am very pleased to see the 17 June 2025 report from Australia entitled “Fighting Superbugs: A Subscription-Style Reimbursement Mechanism to Boost Australia’s Arsenal of Antimicrobial Medicines.” This paper is the output from a Nov 2024 roundtable in Canberra

Global livestock resistome: Antibiotic resistance is widespread!

Dear All (and with thanks to Lance Price for co-authoring this deeply wonkish newsletter), Today we turn to the idea of examining livestock manure for the presence of antibiotic resistance genes. You can easily see how this idea plays into the question of how to track and control AMR. Before we dive into the paper, however,

$ Impact of AMR in your country: Interactive web tool!

Dear All, The 27 Sep 2024 newsletter (“Without action, AMR costs go from $66b to $159b/yr by 2050”) reviewed a report by Anthony McDonnell and a team led by the Center for Global Development in which they created economic estimates of the costs/values of action (and inaction) through 2050, based on 5 possible action/ inaction scenarios.

MHRA Seeks Chief Medical and Scientific Officer

Dear All, I have learned that UK’s MHRA (Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) is recruiting for the role of Chief Medical and Scientific Officer. As you would expect, the role is very senior! The person in the role will: Represent the MHRA across the medical and scientific communities Act as a senior advocate for evidence-based, effective

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