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12.12.2018 | How Indian biotech is driving innovation
NATURE | Bolstered by government support, private investment and and eager graduates and entrepreneurs, India’s biotechnology industry is booming. With more than 1000 start-ups by the end of 2016 - more than half in the medical arena of diagnostics, drugs and medical devices - the biotechnology industry in India was valued at US$11 billion in 2016, and is forecast to grow to $100 billion by 2025.
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11.25.2018 | Dangerous infection tied to hospitals now becoming common in the community
NPR | C. difficile bacteria is no longer just a problem in healthcare settings. It is spreading into the community. Clayton Dalton, a resident physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, writes about the origins of the Clostridium difficile bacteria and traces why it has spread into the community. Today rates of C. diff infection in the community are a major public health concern. Could they also be a precursor to an even larger superbug problem?
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11.09.2018 | How one of the most successful government agencies safeguards our health: BARDA
FORBES | BARDA’s 2018 Industry Day highlighted the work the government agency is doing to identify accidental or man-made biothreats, including viral and bacterial health security threats, and ensure that the US government is able to respond to them. BARDA is one of CARB-X’s founding funders.
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11.07.2018 | OECD report warns of superbug threat to the US: if nothing changes, 1 million people could die in the US and health-care costs could soar to $65 billion by 2050
CNBC | Superbugs pose a dangerous $65 billion threat to US health-care system A new report released Wednesday from the OECD estimates that antimicrobial resistant infection is on track to kill 30,000 Americans per year by 2050. The financial cost to the 33 developed countries included in the study could be as high as $3.5 billion a year.
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11.07.2018 | Stemming the superbug tide: OECD report says that stopping antimicrobial resistance would cost just US $2 per person a year
OECD | A new OECD report warns that superbugs could kill some 2.4 million people in Europe, North America and Australian by 2050 unless more is done to combat drug resistance. Many deaths from superbug infections could be averted by spending a little more on measures - some as simple as hand washing and better prescription practices. The report recommends five areas of improvement in how existing antibiotics are used, but does not specifically address the need for new therapeutics, preventatives and diagnostics.
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11.06.2018 | European study: 33,000 people die every year from antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections
ECDC | A study by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, an agency of the European Union, estimates that more than 33,000 people in Europe die each year from antibiotic-resistant infections, and that the growing health burden of these infections is similar to that of influenza, tuberculosis, and HIV combined. The study shows that 75% of the burden of disease is due to healthcare-associated infections and that that 39% is caused by bacteria resistant to last-line antibiotics such as carbapenems and colistin.
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10.30.2018 | Understanding the economics of antimicrobial threats: Proceedings of a workshop
NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS | Microbial threats, including endemic and emerging infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance, could cause enormous disruption to economic activity worldwide, in addition to significant health consequences. Estimates show that by 2050 if trends continue, global GDP would drop one to four percent and costs associated with AMR could be as high as $53.7 trillion in lost GDP, $14.3 trillion in lost exports, and $10.8 trillion in additional health expenditures.
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10.22.2018 | Antimicrobial resistance: A report to the UK House of Commons by the UK Health and Social Care Committee
UK HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE COMMITTEE | In a new report, the Committee outlines problems created by the rise of drug-resistant bacteria in human health, animal health and the environment, and urges the UK government to take urgent action. The government should make it a top priority with dedicated funding, and produce tangible and rapid progress within six months. Among its recommendations, the Committee urges the government to pilot an upfront payment scheme to incentivize the delivery of new antibiotics, vaccines, rapid diagnostics and other life-saving products. One of the most serious issues in the fight against AMR is the fact that no new class of antibiotics has been introduced for over thirty years.
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10.17.2018 | Developmental roadmap for antimicrobial susceptibility testing systems
NATURE REVIEWS MICROBIOLOGY | Antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) aims to ensure that suitable antibiotics are prescribed and to monitor the emergence of resistant pathogens in infected individuals. While various technologies are being explored, there is no broadly accepted technological breakthrough that leads the field of rapid AST platform development. This article explores barriers that prevent the timely development and implementation of novel rapid AST platforms in health-care settings, including the utility of new methods, the complex process of validating new technology against reference methods beyond the proof-of-concept phase, the legal and regulatory landscapes, costs, the uptake of new tools, reagent stability, optimization of target product profiles, difficulties conducting clinical trials and issues relating to quality and quality control, and present possible solutions.
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10.15.2018 | Analysis of the clinical antibacterial and antituberculosis pipeline
THE LANCET | This World Health Organization analysis reviews the clinical development pipeline for bacteria and TB as of July 1, 2018, against pathogens included on the WHO priority pathogen list. It also looks at their innovativeness measured by the absence of cross-resistance (ew class, target, mode of action). The authors found that the pipeline is dominated by derivatives of established classes and most development candidates display limited innovation. There is an urgent need for more new antibacterial drugs.
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10.03.2018 | India’s first bio-bank for drug resistant microbes starts operations, guidelines on sample collection in the works
PHARMABIZ | India has established its first bio-respository for drug-resistant microbes, a boost for research in the field of antimicrobial resistance. Scientists will be able to deposit and obtain samples of bacteria and infective agents for scientific investigation.
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09.18.2018 | Trump Administration releases new US National Biodefense Strategy, stepping up efforts to protect Americans against man-made and natural biological health threats
WASHINGTON TIMES | The US Government published a new National Biodefense Strategy, calling for improved coordination across the government agencies and better preparedness in the event of a biological threat. The Strategy underscores antimicrobial resistance as a naturally occurring biological threat, saying “Infectious disease threats do not respect borders.” Click here to read the Strategy document
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09.14.2018 | FDA plan focuses on antibiotic development, stewardship: FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb
CIDRAP | The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announces a multipronged strategy to address antimicrobial resistance (AMR) that emphasizes new measures to spur development of antibiotics and alternative therapies, promote antibiotic stewardship in animal health, advance antibiotic resistance surveillance, and enhance regulatory science. Gottlieb praises ‘push’ incentives to drive innovation but says ‘pull’ incentives are needed as well.
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09.04.2018 | Challenges of developing AMR diagnostics, particularly for low-resource settings
LONGITUDE PRIZE BLOG | An interview with Dr. Cassandra Kelly-Cirino, Head of AMR and Outbreaks at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND), an international non-profit organisation that accelerates the development and delivery of high-quality, affordable diagnostic tests for poverty-related diseases and drug-resistance infections.
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08.08.2018 | Scourge of superbugs killing Malawi’s babies
CNN | Malawi is facing an epidemic of infections causing sepsis, particularly among newborns, made worse by ever-increasing drug resistance. Sepsis was responsible for nearly 20% of newborn deaths in 2016. A combination of factors - all related to poverty, insufficient infrastructure and drug resistant bacteria - is at the heart of this tragic situation.
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06.26.2018 | Fighting Infection with Phages
NIH | Antimicrobial resistance is a serious threat to modern medicine: As MRSA and other bacteria become immune to our most common antibiotics, researchers must develop new ways to fight these pathogens. One of these alternatives actually involves viruses called bacteriophages, which prey on bacteria. A new video from NIAID explores how phages function, how phage cocktails are assembled, and more.
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06.22.2018 | New center aims to advance bacteriophage therapy
CIDRAP | Phage research is getting a boost with the creation of a centre at the University of California San Diego that will bring physicians and researchers from the UCSD School of Medicine together to advance research on bacteriophage therapy. Bacteriophage therapy uses viruses that specifically target bacteria to treat patients with multidrug-resistant infections.
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05.09.2018 | Unleashing biotech’s crouching tiger
NATURE BIOTECHNOLOGY | With a massive expansion in healthcare coverage, biotech's next big boom could occur in India. The country has launched the world's largest publicly funded healthcare scheme. Termed 'Modicare’ which could drive investment into the biotech and pharma sector.
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04.25.2018 | Giving at-risk children pre-emptive antibiotics reduces deaths
NATURE | To stem the rise in antibiotic resistance, researchers recommend that people only take the drugs after they are diagnosed with a bacterial infection. But a trial involving nearly 200,000 children in Niger, Tanzania and Malawi went against that guidance in an attempt to save youngsters in regions where as many as one in ten die before their fifth birthday.
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04.25.2018 | Giving at-risk children pre-emptive antibiotics reduces deaths
Nature | Clinical trial in Africa helps kids, but raises fears about drug resistance.
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04.15.2018 | Analysis reveals mechanisms behind pan-resistant pathogen
CIDRAP | Scientists have identified the resistance strains in the carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) bacteria responsible for the death of a Nevada woman in 2016. She died of septic shock. The CRE bacteria - K pneumoniae - was resistant to 26 different antibiotics and is an example of the type of 'nightmare' bacteria the CDC has detected in hospitals in more than 30 states.
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04.03.2018 | ‘Nightmare bacteria’ widespread in U.S. hospitals
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN | The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention detected more than 220 cases last year of a rare breed of “nightmare bacteria” that are virtually untreatable and capable of spreading genes that make them impervious to most antibiotics, according to a report released Tuesday.
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03.26.2018 | Global antibiotic use rises, fueled by economic growth
CIDRAP | Overall global antibiotic use climbed by 65% from 2000 through 2015. A large new study of antibiotic use in humans shows an alarming rise in consumption around the world, driven predominantly by rising living standards in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
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03.26.2018 | Surge in antibiotics is a boon for superbugs
NPR | The development of antibiotics in the middle of the 20th century was one of the greatest achievements of modern medicine. Penicillin and its pharmaceutical cousins saved millions of lives. But like a magic potion given to the world by a stern fairy, antibiotics come with a catch — If you abuse them, you lose them.
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03.26.2018 | The true cost of antibiotic resistance in Britain and around the world
THE TELEGRAPH | The increasing use of antibiotics both in medicine and farming around the world is constantly causing bacteria to mutate and become resistant to drugs. Although the latest data show the steepest rises in consumption are in developing countries, the problem is a global one as so-called superbugs rapidly spread across the world through international travel, trade and tourism.
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03.22.2018 | Price to pay: Antibiotic-resistant infections cost $2 billion a year
CIDRAP | US study says cases of drug resistance are on the rise, almost doubling from 2002 to 2014, adding extra costs to health care on top of costing lives.
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02.01.2018 | New BEAM Alliance of biotech companies calls out worldwide stakeholders to support SME-driven innovation and revive the product pipeline fighting antimicrobial resistance
BEAM ALLIANCE | Position paper: Concerted global action and ‘push and pull’ incentives needed. CARB-X stands out 'at the forefront of innovative funding in AMR and has proven it is possible to take action within a few months to make the difference.
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01.15.2018 | New global approach and greater financial incentives are urgently needed to stimiluate antibiotic innovation
DRIVE–AB | (Driving reinvestment in research and development for antibiotics and advocating their responsible use) calls for sweeping changes and more money to stimulate antibacterial innovation. DRIVE-AB is a consortium of 16 public-sector partners and seven pharmaceutical companies supported by the European Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI)
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