Biopharmaceutical companies launch $1 billion fund to develop new antibiotics
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Two dozen biopharmaceutical companies recently announced the launch of the AMR Action Fund, a collaboration they hope will lead to the development of two to four new antibiotics by 2030.
The fund has already raised nearly $1 billion to support clinical research of new antibiotics that will address the most resistant bacteria and life-threatening infections, the companies said.
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“Unlike COVID-19, [antimicrobial resistance (AMR)] is a predictable and preventable crisis,” Thomas Cueni, director-general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA) — one of the organizers of the new fund — said in a press release. “We must act together to rebuild the pipeline and ensure that the most promising and innovative antibiotics make it from the lab to patients.”
Cueni said the fund “is one of the largest and most ambitious collaborative initiatives ever undertaken by the pharmaceutical industry to respond to a global public health threat.”
Through the fund, the pharmaceutical companies will work with philanthropies, development banks, multilateral organizations and WHO to accelerate antibiotic development, according to the release.
“AMR is a slow tsunami that threatens to undo a century of medical progress,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PHD, MSc, said in the press release. “I very much welcome this new engagement of the private sector in the development of urgently needed antibacterial treatments.“
David Ricks, chairman and CEO of Eli Lilly and Company and president of the IFPMA, said the fund is designed to support “an antibiotic pipeline that is on the verge of collapse, a potentially devastating situation that could affect millions of people around the world.”
“The AMR Action Fund will support innovative antibiotic candidates through the most challenging later stages of drug development, ultimately providing governments time to make the necessary policy reforms to enable a sustainable antibiotic pipeline,” Ricks said.
The companies supporting the fund are Almirall, Amgen, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Chugai, Daiichi-Sankyo, Eisai, Eli Lilly and Company, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, LEO Pharma, Lundbeck, Menarini, Merck, MSD, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Novo Nordisk Foundation, Pfizer, Roche, Shionogi, Takeda, Teva and UCB.
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