January 2016
Antimicrobials, and specifically antibiotics, play a crucial role in modern medicine. These precious medicines are often taken for granted and are not only necessary to treat life-threatening infections, but are also vital to underpin most common surgical procedures and many chronic treatments such as chemotherapy and HIV and transplant medicines. They also play a crucial role in the health of animals.
The increase in bacterial resistance to antibiotics has been dramatic, and combating this growth is a top priority for global policy and public health. There is a particular concern that antibiotics are losing effectiveness faster than they are being replaced by new, innovative drugs, including both antibiotics and alternative non-antibiotic approaches to treating and preventing infections.
This innovation gap has been examined extensively and is widely acknowledged to be the result of a combination of scientific as well as commercial barriers that have impeded antibiotic development over a number of years. The scientific difficulties are formidable and traditional R&D approaches have largely failed: companies, private and public funders have invested billions of dollars over the last 20 years to discover new antibacterials, yet no new class of antibiotic for Gram-negative infections has reached approval in over 40 years.
This situation poses a unique set of challenges. We will always need a supply of innovative new antibiotics; all antibiotics need to be used cautiously to conserve their effects; and, in many countries, we still need to improve access to existing antibiotics.
We welcome the economic analysis of Jim O’Neill’s Review on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), which quantifies both the costs and investments needed. The challenges are clearly substantial and call for transformational changes from many stakeholders. The pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and diagnostics industries have an important role to play, and we are committed to doing our part. Leadership from other sectors is also required, and we welcome the initiative of the Review on AMR, as well as the attention of governments and politicians world-wide (including the recent G7 Berlin declaration), and the leadership of key international organisations (WHO, OIE, FAO, ECDC, US CDC), public funding bodies (NIH, BARDA, the European Commission, and IMI), and charitable foundations (Wellcome Trust, BMGF, and Pew Charitable Trusts)* , amongst others.
We similarly welcome those steps already taken by key regulatory authorities around the world, such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA), to enable antibiotic development in advance of widespread resistance, and we support a continuation of these efforts to ensure greater harmonisation of regulatory processes internationally.
Taking collective action
We support the increasing recognition that the value assigned to antibiotics and diagnostics often does not reflect the benefits they bring to society, nor the investment required for their creation. Therefore, we call on governments to commit to allocating the funds needed to create a sustainable and predictable market for these technologies while also implementing the measures needed to safeguard the effectiveness of antibiotics.
To read full press release, please click here.
Antimicrobials, and specifically antibiotics, play a crucial role in modern medicine. These precious medicines are often taken for granted and are not only necessary to treat life-threatening infections, but are also vital to underpin most common surgical procedures and many chronic treatments such as chemotherapy and HIV and transplant medicines. They also play a crucial role in the health of animals.
The increase in bacterial resistance to antibiotics has been dramatic, and combating this growth is a top priority for global policy and public health. There is a particular concern that antibiotics are losing effectiveness faster than they are being replaced by new, innovative drugs, including both antibiotics and alternative non-antibiotic approaches to treating and preventing infections.
This innovation gap has been examined extensively and is widely acknowledged to be the result of a combination of scientific as well as commercial barriers that have impeded antibiotic development over a number of years. The scientific difficulties are formidable and traditional R&D approaches have largely failed: companies, private and public funders have invested billions of dollars over the last 20 years to discover new antibacterials, yet no new class of antibiotic for Gram-negative infections has reached approval in over 40 years.
This situation poses a unique set of challenges. We will always need a supply of innovative new antibiotics; all antibiotics need to be used cautiously to conserve their effects; and, in many countries, we still need to improve access to existing antibiotics.
We welcome the economic analysis of Jim O’Neill’s Review on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), which quantifies both the costs and investments needed. The challenges are clearly substantial and call for transformational changes from many stakeholders. The pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and diagnostics industries have an important role to play, and we are committed to doing our part. Leadership from other sectors is also required, and we welcome the initiative of the Review on AMR, as well as the attention of governments and politicians world-wide (including the recent G7 Berlin declaration), and the leadership of key international organisations (WHO, OIE, FAO, ECDC, US CDC), public funding bodies (NIH, BARDA, the European Commission, and IMI), and charitable foundations (Wellcome Trust, BMGF, and Pew Charitable Trusts)* , amongst others.
We similarly welcome those steps already taken by key regulatory authorities around the world, such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA), to enable antibiotic development in advance of widespread resistance, and we support a continuation of these efforts to ensure greater harmonisation of regulatory processes internationally.
Taking collective action
We support the increasing recognition that the value assigned to antibiotics and diagnostics often does not reflect the benefits they bring to society, nor the investment required for their creation. Therefore, we call on governments to commit to allocating the funds needed to create a sustainable and predictable market for these technologies while also implementing the measures needed to safeguard the effectiveness of antibiotics.
To read full press release, please click here.
