Dear All,
I promise that the next email will be all about the 25 Mar 2020 NHS England webinar on their antibiotic evaluation and procurement pilot (you’re going to love it … NICE and NHS England are doing great stuff … go here if you want to see a prior newsletter on this topic), BUT we’re going to have a real change from our usual programming today.
I hope you recognize the name Alan Carr … he is an analyst at Needham & Company (https://www.needhamco.com/) who writes regularly on the antibacterial pipeline. Go here for the most recent newsletter on his summaries: his analyses have been invaluable on many occasions to the antibacterial community.
Alan called me and proposed that we do a point survey on the R&D community’s insights on COVID-19. He suggested a very simple survey to get a crowd-sourced perspective on what we as a group think about when this will peak and what therapies are most helpful now while we await organized trial data.
Great idea! Here’s the survey. It takes at most 10 minutes, likely less: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/P2YN8PN
Please share this link widely … everybody can participate!
Alan will summarize the data and report it back to all of us. Thanks for participating!
Stay safe! All best wishes, –jr
PS: David Price, a critical care pulmonologist at Cornell-Weill (a premiere hospital in the New York City area) has recorded an exceptionally instructive video on how to protect yourself and your family from the perspective of a health care provider. Go here for the video. It’s an hour long but worth every minute.
PPS: On the topic of the diffuse coronavirus-related angst that is so widespread, I found an article from Harvard Business Review to be very helpful (link). Entitled “That discomfort you are feeling is grief,” the article provided practical thoughts on how to find calm in the midst of uncertainty. Inhale, exhale, and focus on being present. Please stay safe!
PPPS: Global regulators have published a report today (link) presenting the outcomes of a workshop on COVID-19 vaccine development that was convened under the umbrella of the International Coalition of Medicines Regulatory Authorities (ICMRA). The corresponding EMA press release is here. I don’t find a specific FDA press release, but their daily updates are here and are very interesting.
John H. Rex, MD | Chief Medical Officer, F2G Ltd. | Operating Partner, Advent Life Sciences. Follow me on Twitter: @JohnRex_NewAbx. See past newsletters and subscribe for the future: https://amr.solutions/blog/. All opinions are my own.
Current funding opportunities:
- Open now through 9 Apr 2020: NIAID Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) soliciting contract proposals for preclinical and clinical development of vaccines, therapeutic, and diagnostics for microbial pathogens. Go here for more.
- Dates for the 2020 funding rounds for Novo REPAIR Impact Fund will be announced May 2020. Go here for current details.
- 2020 funding rounds for CARB-X have not been announced.
Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:
- 30 Mar 2020 (everywhere): Deadline for applications for the Molecular Mycology pathogenesis course at Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole. Now in its 24th year, the hands-on residential course runs 17 July to 2 Aug and gets rave reviews. Go here for more.
- 28 Apr 2020 (online, 17:00-18:30 CEST): GARDP REVIVE webinar. Title: “Inhaled antimicrobials: Do we get the drug to the bug?” Speaker: Harm A. W. M. Tiddens. Go here to register.
- 5 May 2020 (online, 09:00-10:30 CEST): GARDP REVIVE webinar. Title: “The challenges and opportunities for antimicrobial R&D in low- and middle-income countries – India case study.” Speaker: Anand Anandkumar. Go here to register.
- 7 May 2020 (Silver Spring): FDA workshop entitled “Development Considerations of Antifungal Drugs to Address Unmet Medical Need.” Go here to register.
- 8 May 2020 (Silver Spring): FDA workshop entitled “Developing Antifungal Drugs for the Treatment of Coccidioidomycosis (Valley Fever) Infection.” Go here to register.
- 25-30 May 2020 (Rotterdam), Annual ESPID meeting (European Society for Pediatric ID, #38)
- 18-22 Jun 2020 (Chicago), ASM Microbe 2020. Go here for details.
- 17 Jul-2 Aug 2020 (Marine Biology Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA): Residential course entitled “Molecular Mycology: Current Approaches to Fungal Pathogenesis.” This 2-week intensive training program has run annually for many years and gets outstanding reviews. Go here for details.
- 29 Jul-2 Aug 2020 (Philadelphia, PA): Small World Initiative Instructor Training Workshop – training for undergraduate professors and high school teachers in wet lab techniques, parallel curricula, pedagogical instruction to engage students in the hunt to find new antibiotics in soil. Go here to register.
- 24-25 Aug 2020 (Basel): BEAM-, Novo REPAIR-, CARB-X-, DZIF-, ND4BB-, ENABLE-supported (among a long list!) Conference on Novel Antimicrobials and AMR Diagnostics. Details are here.
- September 2020. University of Sheffield (UK). Applications are being taken for a new 1-year (full-time) or 2-year (part-time) Masters of Science course in Antimicrobial Resistance. The program runs annually from September and covers microbiology, clinical practice and policy. The course webpage is here.
- 1-4 Sep 2020 (Dublin): Annual ASM-ESCMID Conference on Antibiotic Development #5! Mark your calendar now and go here for details.
- 9-10 Sep 2020 (Washington, DC): US PACCARB public meeting. Go here for details.
- 22-25 Sep 2020 (Albuquerque, New Mexico): Biannual meeting of the MSGERC (Mycoses Study Group Education and Research Consortium). Save-the-date announcement is here, details to follow.
- [REGISTRATION NOW OPEN] 17-25 Oct 2020 (Annecy, France): Interdisciplinary Course on Antibiotics and Resistance (ICARe). This is a soup-to-nuts residential course on antibiotics, antibiotic resistance, and antibiotic R&D. The course is very intense, very detailed, and gets rave reviews. Registration is here and is limited to 40 students.
- 10-13 Apr 2021 (Vienna): Annual ECCMID meeting (#31)
- [NEW] 20-24 June 2021 (Toronto): International Symposium on Pneumococci and Pneumococcal Diseases (ISPPD-12). Go here for details.
- 3-7 Jun 2021 (Anaheim), ASM Microbe 2021. Go here for details.