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07.14.2021 | Bugworks in the spotlight
FORBES INDIA MARQUEE | Bugworks’ co-founder Dr. Bala Subramanian was recently a featured as one of Forbes’ “Leaders by Example”. The article provides an overview of Bugworks’ founding and culture, Subramanian’s leadership role and the funding that helped make Bugworks happen, including CARB-X’s award.
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05.27.2021 | Striving to bolster the antibiotic pipeline before it becomes the next crisis
CHEMISTRY WORLD | It’s been almost 10 years since the World Health Organization warned of a post-antibiotic era unless action was taken against the growing risk of antibiotic resistance. There has been some progress in investment in the development of new approaches to address the most serious drug-resistant bacteria. CARB-X and the AMR Action Fund are positive steps toward supporting the development of innovative products to address the emerging and growing threat of superbugs. World leaders are beginning to look at policy changes that would remove the economic obstacles to new product development. Yet, 700,000 people die each year from antibiotic-resistant infections and antibiotic resistance continues to spread and thrive. The central question remains. Will this threat be solved before it mushrooms into an even bigger public health crisis?
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05.05.2021 | Mutabilis’ EBL-1463 programme graduates from ENABLE with Development Candidate and continues to progress with funding and support from CARB-X
French biopharmaceutical Mutabilis has identified a lead development candidate in its EBL-1463 program, which recently was awarded funding from CARB-X. The lead candidate was identified with the help of ENABLE, a European drug discovery and development consortium, funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI). The consortium brings together scientists with diverse skills, and offers pharmaceutical industry expert advice and guidance to programmes. ENABLE has provided guidance and support to Mutabilis since 2017 and was instrumental in helping Mutabilis progress the project this far. EBL-1463 is a novel class of non-beta-lactam inhibitor of penicillin-binding proteins (PBPs) called dabocins. It kills bacteria in the same efficient way as beta-lactams – by interfering with the cell wall synthesis of the bacteria. Contrary to beta-lactams, however, EBL-1463 shows unmatched stability to class A, B, C and D beta-lactamases. The project is now in the preclinical phase.
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04.30.2021 | Treating antibiotic resistance: Need for diagnostics and AI
DEVEX | The need for new products to address antibiotic-resistant infections is already staggering and growing, and there is great science being done to advance solutions to solve the crisis. But is the economics that are failing – not enough incentives and money to ensure that solutions being discovered and developed will actually reach the patients who need them. Organizations like CARB-X are supporting the early development of innovative products but there is a serious shortage of support for the more expensive later stages of development. “Let me tell you, the last thing we want to do is get these companies to sort of this … graduation stage, and then they fall off a cliff,” says Erin Duffy, CARB-X R&D Chief in this article written by Jenny Lei Ravelo, that examines the issues and also looks at some of the breakthrough diagnostics supported by CARB-X.
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04.16.2021 | Antibiotic pipeline offers little hope to counter ‘silent pandemic’ of superbugs, WHO warns
THE TELEGRAPH | The pipeline to develop new antibiotics contains few drugs that can help counter a “silent pandemic” of superbugs, according to the World Health Organization. The UN health agency warned that none of the 43 antibiotics currently in clinical development “sufficiently address” rising drug-resistance in the world’s most dangerous 13 pathogens, while the antibiotic pipeline is “near static”.
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02.17.2021 | The next pandemic? It may already be upon us
THE GUARDIAN | Antimicrobial resistance isn’t racing across the world like COVID-19, but its effects will be devastating. Thankfully we already know what we need to do to defeat it. CARB-X Executive Director Kevin Outterson discusses solutions to address the global antibiotic-resistance threat and what actions are needed now from governments and other organizations to stimulate innovation and minimize the spread of resistance.
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02.17.2021 | Biden must act quickly to defeat another pandemic
BOSTON HERALD | COVID-19 isn’t the only infectious disease that killing Americans by the tens of thousands. Antibiotic-resistant fungi and bacteria known as superbugs claim thousands of American lives annually. And the death toll is expected to soar in the years ahead, as these microbes evolve to resist our most potent medicines. Fortunately, the Biden administration can avert a worst-case scenario, according to CARB-X Executive Director Kevin Outterson. But officials must act quickly to accelerate the creation of new and better treatments. Two bills in the US Congress offer a path forward: the Pioneering Antimicrobial Subscriptions to End Upsurging Resistance (PASTEUR) Act, which would set up a ‘Netflix-style’ subscription reimbursement model for antibiotics, and the Developing an Innovative Strategy for Antimicrobial Resistance Microorganisms (DISARM) Act, which would grant extra funding to hospitals that use newer, more effective antibiotics when appropriate.
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02.11.2021 | Do we need a Netflix for Antibiotics?
FINANCIAL TIMES | The FT’s Andrew Jack explores the question of how to incentivize the development of new antibiotics. An informative 4:49-minute video. More countries must provide the right incentives to develop drugs to combat antibiotic resistance. Jack explores the idea of tackling the growing global health threat by de-linking incentive payments to pharmaceutical companies from sales, offering pharma companies guaranteed income for innovative treatments rather than rewarding them with volume of sales.
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02.06.2021 | Funding phage development — a Q&A with CARB-X’s Richard Alm
CAPSID & TAIL | In this Q&A interview, Dr. Richard Alm, Alliance Director at CARB-X, shares his insights in how phages are fitting into the antibacterial clinical landscape, and his advice for phage biotech companies developing new drugs to address antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. CARB-X supports innovative drug development projects in this promising area of research – projects at Eligo Bioscience and Locus Biosciences, and others that will soon be announced. He also looks at the need for product developers to consider the need for rapid effective diagnostics and how CARB-X is supporting R&D in these fields.
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01.25.2021 | Non-profits fill gaps in the broken market for antibiotics
FINANCIAL TIMES | Push-pull incentives will be needed if the battle against antimicrobial resistance is to succeed. The pull has to come from financial incentives to repair the broken market for antibiotics and make it worthwhile for the pharmaceutical industry to bring promising drugs to market. Yet despite signs that governments and the industry are beginning to tackle this — such as by finding ways to pay companies for developing drugs that will not be used under normal circumstances — there is still a long way to go. The push side is looking encouraging. A ferment of research funded by non-profits is producing new antibiotics, using technologies ranging from conventional “small molecule” chemistry to more biological approaches that enlist other microbes or viruses to attack harmful bacteria. CARB-X is one of the success stories on the push side that is making a difference.
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01.12.2021 | Can we warp-speed antibiotic development?
MEDCITY NEWS | We are living through the worst pandemic in a century, and infectious disease experts in the are sounding the alarm that drug-resistant bacteria will lead to another public health crisis. Misaligned market incentives related to development of antibiotics mean that necessary pharmacological innovations are deemed irrational investments. That means the burden is on the government to invest in these initiatives for the sake of public health. The constellation of US actors fighting antimicrobial resistance seek support for two new legislative fixes: the DISARM (Developing an Innovative Strategy for Antimicrobial Resistant Microorganisms) Act and the PASTEUR (Pioneering Antimicrobial Subscriptions to End Upsurging Resistance) Act. Together, the two support higher reimbursement rates and bulk purchasing of novel antibiotics.
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01.08.2021 | Improving data sharing to increase the efficiency of antibiotic R&D
NATURE REVIEWS DRUG DISCOVERY | Greater investment is needed in antibiotic R&D, and more must be done to maximize the impact of such investments. More widespread data sharing, such as the recent joint data contribution from Merck and Kyorin to the Pew Charitable Trusts’ SPARK platform, has a key role. We need to spend more money on antibiotic R&D to address this challenge, but we can also spend smarter, by encouraging data sharing, especially from failed projects. This will help every antibiotic research team to stand on the shoulders of giants, instead of reinventing the wheel. Commentary authored by Kevin Outterson, Zak Zimmerman, Kevin Krause and Wes Kim.
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