Dear All,
The G20-sponsored Global AMR R&D Hub (https://globalamrhub.org/) has recently published a call requesting proposals to estimate the market potential of four AMR-focused products. The call for tender is ID E47567917 and can be found at this link.
The proposal requests bids to estimate the global market potential of these 4 types of products:
- A therapeutic for MDR Gram-negative bloodstream infections
- A therapeutic for MDR Gram-negative infections that cause pneumonia
- A rapid diagnostic to determine bacterial vs. other etiologies
- A diagnostic for rapid pathogen identification and resistance testing
For each product, the request is for an epidemiological prediction (number of potential patients who could benefit) and an economic prediction (potential revenues based on market demand). The deadline to submit a proposal is 10:00 CET, 19 June 2020. See also the further notes just below my signature for important guidance on submitting an application.
The backstory: As you may recall, the Global AMR Research and Development (R&D) Hub was launched by the G20 leadership in May 2018 with a mandate to address challenges and improve coordination and collaboration in global AMR R&D using a One Health approach. A recent newsletter discussed their dynamic R&D activity dashboard (link) and now we have this call for assistance with estimating the value of AMR products.
As context for this call, the AMR Hub has said:
- “Accurately forecasting a global patient burden of drug-resistant infections and an AMR-relevant product’s financial market potential are challenging propositions.
- “Issues include dearth of data, health system heterogeneity, uncertainty in product positioning and uptake together with challenges understanding willingness to pay.
- “While these issues plague all markets for medical products, the prevalence of off-label prescribing and the notable lack of data on incidence and prevalence of drug-resistant infections further complicate this understanding in the field of AMR R&D.
- “Estimates of a product’s market potential are necessary for many different actors notably public/philanthropic agencies working on access and provision and private companies forecasting potential worldwide revenues, to inform R&D investment decisions years ahead of a product being available.”
The Hub has an Expert Advisory Group (EAG,17 global trans-disciplinary experts) who are tasked with delivering a market analysis report that addresses the questions above. The work described in this call would be used to complete several chapters of that report.
Could you or your team help the Hub with this work? Take a look! All best wishes, –jr
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.
Further notes from the tender webpage: The link to the tender (same as above) takes you to the German public procurement system and requires a login and the need to follow the instructions in German. The tender package contains nine documents of which only the Terms of Reference (ToR) itself is also provided in English. However, the Global AMR R&D Hub’s working language is English and the proposal and work are to be conducted in English.
Due to the scale of this task and the limited budget available, potential bidders are strongly encouraged to carefully read the ToRs for guidance and details particularly regarding the expectations, scope and what will be used to assess the bids received.
Current funding opportunities:
- 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.
- The Global AMR R&D Hub’s dynamic dashboard (link) summarizes funders and projects by geography, stage, and more.
Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:
- 27 May 2020 (online, 2-3p GMT): Global AMR R&D Hub webinar. Title: “How to use the Global AMR R&D Hub’s Dynamic Dashboard”. Speakers: Bersabel Ephrem (Public Health Agency of Canada), Renu Swarup (Ministry of Science & Technology, India), Lyalya Gabbasova (Ministry of Health, Russian Federation), Tim Jinks (Wellcome Trust), Elmar Nimmesgern, (Global AMR R&D Hub)
- 28 May 2020 (online, 7-8a GMT): Global AMR R&D Hub webinar. Title: “How to use the Global AMR R&D Hub’s Dynamic Dashboard”. Speakers: Same as 27 May webinar.
- 28 May 2020 (online, noon-1p EST): CARB-X webinar. Title: “How to Prepare for an FDA Pre-IND Meeting: Planning for Success.” Speakers: Carmella Moody and Michael Bevilacqua. Go here to register.
- 9 Jun 2020 (online, 17:00-18:30 CEST): GARDP REVIVE webinar. Title: “Test tube to patient: PK/PD of fixed dose beta-lactam/beta-lactamase inhibitor combinations.” Speaker: Vincent Tam. Go here to register.
- 30 Jun 2020 (online, 17:00-18:30 CEST): GARDP REVIVE webinar. Title: “Clinical development of antimicrobials – Phase 1 development challenges.” Speaker: Markus Zeitlinger. Go here to register.
- 9 Jul 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 and Kamini Walla. Go here to register.
- 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.
- 4 Aug 2020 (Silver Spring): FDA workshop entitled “Development Considerations of Antifungal Drugs to Address Unmet Medical Need.” Go here to register.
- 5 Aug 2020 (Silver Spring): FDA workshop entitled “Developing Antifungal Drugs for the Treatment of Coccidioidomycosis (Valley Fever) Infection.” Go here to register.
- 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.
- 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.
- 26-29 Oct 2020 (Rotterdam), Annual ESPID meeting (European Society for Pediatric ID, #38)
- 10-13 Apr 2021 (Vienna): Annual ECCMID meeting (#31)
- 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.
- 8-11 Oct 2021 (Aberdeen, Scotland): 10th Trends in Medical Mycology. Go here for details.
- 16-24 Oct 2021 (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.