AMR partnership gathers speed
GARDP:?Six European states, together with the British Wellcome Trust and South Africa, have pledged €56.5m to help develop new antibiotics that break resistance. The ambitious goal of the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) is to develop and deliver up to four new treatments that enter clinical development within the next six years.
The candidates can be either improvements on existing antibiotics or new chemical entities. The fact is that we cannot do without antibiotics, said Germanys Health Minister Hermann Gröhe during a fundraising GARDP event in Berlin in early September. The funding made available today for the GARDP is a major step forward in the fight against the global health risk that antibiotic resistance presents. The investment was led by Germany, which will contribute €51.35m, and is co-financed by the governments of The Netherlands (€2m), the UK (€1.1m), Switzerland (€440,000), South Africa (€390,000), Luxembourg (€100,000), Monaco (N.A.), and the British Wellcome Trust (€1.1m).
GARDP plans to collaborate with CARB-X, currently the largest private public partnership funded by the US government, and the Wellcome Trust to bolster preclinical antibiotics programmes. The not-for-profit organisation GARDP was founded last summer by the World Health Organisation and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) to fight sexually-transmitted infections, neonatal sepsis, and to develop new antibiotics for adults and children who suffer from bacteria resistant to existing antibiotics. By 2023, the GARDP would need at least €270m in funding to achieve four predefined goals. The Netherlands Health Minister Edith Schippers said, We know that the current business models for the development of new antibiotics do not work. We have to work on new models that result in relevant and affordable products that are used in a responsible way. Lets hope that others will join soon: it is time to walk the talk. Steve Brine, the UKs Health Minister, added, AMR is the biggest global health threat we face and we know infections dont respect borders, so a united international effort is essential. The UK warmly welcomes Germanys leadership on AMR through its G20 Presidency, and we will play an active role in supporting these and other initiatives.
Meanwhile, the GARDP had presented its first partner in July. Supporting the US company Entasis Therapeutics, the novel first-in-class oral antibiotic zoliflodacin will enter pivotal clinical trials. The compound is one of only few treatments in development to address drug-resistant gonorrhea. If zoliflodacin receives regulatory approval, Entasis will grant GARDP an exclusive license with sublicensing rights in most low- and middle-income countries, while retaining commercial rights in high-income markets.
(First published in European Biotechnology, Autumn Edition 2017)
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02 March 2018
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