ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE SOLUTIONS
WITH DR. JOHN H. REX
Latest Newsletters
Dear All,I've written in the past about the creative work done by the Milken Institute on health care financing (26 Mar 2022 newsletter, "Pull mechanisms: Private capital can multiply Subscription (Netflix) and TEV models!").Milken recently held a 3-day symposium entitled "The Future of Health Summit" (4-6 Nov 2025) during which there was an excellent 1-h session entitled "Terminating Superbugs: How New Technologies Can Fight Antimicrobial Resistance."Moderated by Jomana Musmar (CEO, AMR Strategic Coalitions [ASC], see the 4 Nov 2025 newsletter about the ASC), the discussants included:Professor Ara Darzi; Co-Director, Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London and Executive Chair, The Fleming InitiativeTom Frieden, President and CEO, Resolve to Save Lives; 16th Director, Centers for Disease Control and PreventionAndrew Hemmert, Senior Vice President, Molecular Research and Development, bioMerieuxAkhila Kosaraju, CEO and President, Phare Bio The wide-ranging discussion encompassed global health (Lord Darzi), the need for access to drugs (Dr. Frieden), the need for access to diagnostics (Dr. Hemmert), the potential for AI to augment discovery (Dr. Kosaraju), and the distorted economics of antibiotics (everybody). It's worth your while and also well worth sharing! Here we go:https://vimeo.com/1131023818There's lots to enjoy in this video! I'll start with the story by Lord Darzi about how penicillin...
Dear All (and with thanks...
Latest Government Action
Dear All, I am pleased to learn that BARDA is holding a one-day innovation symposium on 20 Nov 2025. As you know, BARDA is a consistently creative funder of diverse medical countermeasures, including new antibiotics. For background, see these prior newsletters:22 Jul 2025 newsletter: "BARDA RFP: Antibiotic for HABP/VABP or Bloodstream Infection"5 Nov 2024 newsletter: "BARDA seeks deep insight on antibacterials near/beyond end-of-Phase 2"12 Nov 2023 newsletter: "Fireside Chat with BARDA’s Branch Chief for Antimicrobials".The video from this newsletter (see also below my signature) is highly recommended as a primer on that way that Team BARDA think about medical countermeasures!26 Sep 2023 newsletter: "BARDA Medical Countermeasures BAA: Substantial updates"BARDA's BAA-23-100-SOL-00004 is open through Sep 2028!As to the 1-day symposium, it runs 9a-5p ET on 20 Nov 2025 in Washington DC. Let me quote from the announcement (highlights added by me):"Join us in person for an engaging showcase of early-stage health security innovations supported by BARDA through our Division of Research, Innovation, and Ventures (DRIVe), the BARDA Accelerator Network, BARDA Ventures, BLUE KNIGHT, and CARB-X. "The symposium will bring together BARDA-supported innovators, U.S. government partners, investors, strategic partners, and other key stakeholders to highlight technologies and foster collaborations to advance the development of medical...
Dear All,Referring back to the...
Dear All,Attention phage developers --...
Dear All,D-Day and the momentous Normandy...
Dear All,If you represent a...
Dear All, Sadly, I must...
Dear All (and with thanks...
R&D Insight
Dear All,The US Department of...
Dear All (and with thanks...
Dear All (Wonkish alert! Get...
Dear All, Today's topics all...
(Updated on 8 July 2020)Dear...
Dear All (and with thanks...
Dear All,Some great news today! We...
Dear All,I've written before about...
Can you help?
Dear All,I have just learned that Lifeline, the musical formerly known as The Mould that Changed the World, is seeking scientists, medics, and healthcare professionals to be part of the cast for a portion of a planned 5-week off-Broadway run of the show around the time of the High-Level Meeting (HLM) on AMR at UNGA 2024 in New York City...
Dear All, Heads up! Having...
Note: Be sure to take...
Update on 11 October 2023: The...
Dear All,Along with more than...
Dear All (and with thanks to...
Dear All, Two items for...
Dear All, Three things today......
Dear All, Greetings from ECCMID...
Dear All,A key theme of...
Dear All,Following hard on the...
Dear All, A short one...
Dear All, We are swimming...
Antimicrobial resistance poses a catastrophic threat. If we don’t act now, any one of us could go into hospital in 20 years for minor surgery and die because of an ordinary infection that can’t be treated by antibiotics. And routine operations like hip replacements or organ transplants could be deadly because of the risk of infection.
AMR Fireside Chats
1/18 videos
1
Episode 17 w/ Ella Balasa and Rob Purdie of WHO Task Force of AMR Survivors - AMR Fireside Chat
38:24
2
Episode 16 w/ Ramanan Laxminarayan, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
32:59
3
Episode 15 w/ Mark Albrecht, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
43:55
4
Episode 14 w/ Lynn Silver - AMR Fireside Chat
56:23
5
Episode 13 w/ Kevin Outterson - AMR Fireside Chat
30:01
6
Episode 12 w/ Tina Joshi, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
34:22
7
Episode 11 w/ Martin Heidecker - AMR Fireside Chat
32:31
8
Episode 10 w/ Anna Govett - AMR Fireside Chat
14:54
9
Episode 9 w/ Fatema Rafiqi, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
34:10
10
Episode 8 w/ Ghada Zoubiane, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
35:04
11
Episode 7 w/ Trevor Lithgow, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
35:41
12
AMR Snapshots: Episode 2 - John Rex (Editor-In-Chief, AMR.Solutions)
26:25
13
Episode 6 w/ Maryn McKenna - AMR Fireside Chat
45:50
14
Episode 5 w/ Christine Årdal - AMR Fireside Chat
43:44
15
Episode 4 w/ Peter Beyer - AMR Fireside Chat
39:21
16
Episode 3 w/ Kevin Outterson - AMR Fireside Chat
11:45
17
Episode 2 w/ Henry Skinner, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
15:44
18
Episode 1 w/ Kevin Outterson - AMR Fireside Chat
52:56
Draft EMA antibacterial guidance: Analysis
Dear All: I wrote previously that EMA posted an extensively updated and consolidated version of their previously separate Guideline (CPMP/EWP/558/95 Rev.2) and Addendum (EMA/CHMP/351889/2013) documents into a single draft ...
Read More →
FDA workshop: Insights on inhaled antifungals and antibacterials
Dear All (wonkish alert … coffee up!), FDA held a workshop on 25 Sep 2020 on development of inhaled antifungal (AF) therapies with a focus ...
Read More →
FDA analysis of 40-years of antibacterial development: Dheman et al.
Dear All (and with thanks to Kevin Outterson for co-authoring this newsletter), Just out in CID is a paper in which FDA analyzes trends in ...
Read More →
Plazomicin (Achaogen) financial post-mortem: #PassPASTEUR
Dear All (and with thanks to Kevin for co-authoring and also a wonkish alert … get your coffee and settle in for the details), If ...
Read More →
FDA Workshop: Animal Models To Support Antibacterial Development (5 Mar 2020, post-meeting notes)
Dear All (detailed and wonkish note alert … lots of thinking out loud … get some coffee and settle in!), I wrote previously (link) about ...
Read More →
Chemical vs. drugs (Part 2): How do you discriminate? / More on halicin
This newsletter is part of a series — here are the links to Part 1, (this one is Part 2), Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5. Also relevant ...
Read More →
Language matters: CRE vs. CPE; SDD vs. I; and MDR, XDR, PDR, UDR vs. DTR
Note: See also these related newsletters: 13 Jan 2019 (link) on DTR as part of the language of resistance and 7 June 2020 (link) on ...
Read More →
The hunt for oral antibiotics: Beyond Lipinski’s Rule of Five
Dear All: Given our collective interest in finding oral antibiotics, a recent article in J Med Chem on the evolution of our understanding of Lipinski’s ...
Read More →
Push! Pull! Push! Pull! / Highlights from Davos 2018
Dear All: Three important documents were released at / during / around the World Economic Forum meeting that occurred this week in Davos. First and foremost, ...
Read More →
Categories of resistance: MDR, XDR, PDR, UDR, and (new!) DTR
Note: See also these related newsletters: 20 Feb 2020 (link) on DTR as part of the language of resistance and 7 June 2020 (link) on ...
Read More →
How hard (and how) to Pull? Net value of Pull via a Transferrable Exclusivity Extension (TEE)
Dear All (wonkish alert … get your coffee!), EFPIA have recently released a report estimating the value of a Transferable Exclusivity Extension (TEE, report, press ...
Read More →
IDSA White Paper on developing narrow-spectrum antimicrobials + editorial by G. Drusano
Dear All (long note alert … there’s a lot of material below my signature): Just published today is an IDSA White Paper entitled “Developing Antimicrobial ...
Read More →
The thoughtless person playing with penicillin treatment is morally responsible for the death of the man who succumbs to infection with the penicillin-resistant organism.
The bipartisan PASTEUR Act is the strongest bill ever written to strengthen antibiotic development and use. It will fix our market failures, expand the pipeline for next generation antibiotics, and save lives. We can’t sit on our hands as this public health crisis arrives – we have to act now.
Summaries
Notes: Newsflash ... BARDA have...
Aside: If you've enjoyed the...
See also This related newsletter:...
Dear All (and with thanks...
Dear All (Wonkish alert! Coffee-up!),Today...