G20 Health Minister’s declaration / Calls for push, pull, avoiding price/volume mechanisms, and support of global partnerships!

Dear All:
 
Adding to the continued forward momentum of calls for support of antibiotic R&D, this week’s meeting of the G20 Health Ministers has led to the attached declaration. After some very sound recitations of the importance of health communities and the importance of good infrastructure, we also have calls for R&D preparedness (Para 15), workforce building (Para 22), and then a long section on AMR (DRI, Para 23 et seq).
 
The discussion of AMR loosely follows the WHO list and covers surveillance, good practice, One Health, and R&D. Paras. 30 and 31 are then noteworthy and provided in detail below my signature. There are calls for push and pull mechanisms that avoid reliance on high price/volume combinations as well as a shout out to global partnerships that are supporting this area. The new WHO priority list (summary deck attached for reference) also gets a shout.
 
The degree of alignment on the tools needed to ensure progress is amazing! Wow! Take a little time to savor it … and then please get busy and discovery some new tools!
 
All best wishes,
 
–jr
 
John H. Rex, MD | Chief Medical Officer, F2G Ltd. | Chief Strategy Officer, CARB-X | Expert-in-Residence, Wellcome Trust
Follow me on Twitter: @JohnRex_NewAbx
 
 
 
30. We recognize the importance of reactivating the R&D pipeline through incentive mechanisms that avoid the reliance on high price/volume combinations. We also recognize the need to promote prudent and responsible use of antimicrobials. In the Hangzhou G20 Leaders’ Communiqué, G20 leaders called on the WHO, FAO, OIE and OECD to collectively report back in 2017. Their report ‘Tackling Antimicrobial Resistance, Ensuring Sustainable R&D’ will be considered by leaders when they meet on 7-8 July. In this context we support ongoing initiatives, examining push and pull mechanisms that take into account needs of all countries and stress the need for a better coordination of existing initiatives. Furthermore, we note the importance of affordable access to new and existing antimicrobial drugs, diagnostic tools, alternative therapies and vaccines of quality to all patients in need. We will preserve the widest possible therapeutic treatment options through avoiding removal of old antibiotics from the market and work for a sustainable solution to address this issue.
 
 
31. To reinvigorate research and development in science and industry for antimicrobials, we welcome and build on the work of existing global and regional product development partnerships and funding initiatives such as the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP), launched in May 2016 by the WHO and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), UNITAID, the Joint Programming Initiative on AMR (JPIAMR), Combating Antibiotic Resistance Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator (CARB-X), Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), the TB Alliance for new anti-tuberculosis medicines. We commit to broaden the voluntary financial support for these initiatives. We call on other countries, philanthropic organizations, academia and the private sector to support these initiatives. We recognize the necessity of tools such as Target Product Profiles to describe high need products and the importance of prioritization of pathogens, to steer R&D efforts to the most pressing public health needs. Therefore, we welcome the WHO priority pathogen list, which, in addition to existing recommendations for HIV, TB, Malaria and NTDs, should guide R&D for antimicrobials.