IDSA’s 10×20 could be 20×20 and yet not enough! / Harvard course on FDA and prescription drugs

Dear All: Two things on a Friday:

First, I just learned of IDSA’s release of its latest paper (link) in the Bad Bugs/No Drugs and 10×20 series. Officially entitled “The Infectious Diseases Society of America’s 10 × ’20 Initiative (Ten New Systemic Antibacterial Agents FDA-approved by 2020): Is 20 × ’20 a Possibility?”, I think a better title might be “20×20 might not be enough!”. The abstract says it all:

• Results: Since our 2013 pipeline status report, the number of new antibiotics annually approved for marketing in the US has reversed its previous decline, likely influenced by new financial incentives and increased regulatory flexibility. Although our survey demonstrates progress in development of new antibacterial drugs that target infections caused by resistant bacterial pathogens, the majority of recently approved agents have been modifications of existing chemical classes of antibiotics, rather than new chemical classes. Furthermore, larger pharmaceutical companies continue to abandon the field, and smaller companies face financial difficulties as a consequence.
• Conclusions: Unfortunately, if 20 x ’20 is achieved due to efforts embarked upon in decades past, it could mark the apex of antibiotic drug development for years to come. Without increased regulatory, governmental, industry, and scientific support and collaboration, durable solutions to the clinical, regulatory and economic problems posed by bacterial multidrug resistance will not be found.

And on a separate but related note, Harvard is offering an interesting online course: “The FDA and Prescription Drugs: Current Controversies in Context.” The course theme is to help you understand how the FDA regulates pharmaceuticals and explore debates on prescription drug costs, marketing, and testing. If you’ve wanted to learn more about pharmaceutical regulation in general, this looks like a great place to start! The course itself is free, and a certificate of completion is available for $99. The course starts next week on 26 March.

All best wishes, –jr

John H. Rex, MD | Chief Medical Officer, F2G Ltd. | Expert-in-Residence, Wellcome Trust. Follow me on Twitter: @JohnRex_NewAbx. See past newsletters and subscribe for the future: https://13.43.35.2/blog/

Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:

• [NEW] 26 Mar 2019 (everywhere): First day of Harvard-sponsored course entitled “FDA and Prescription Drugs: Current Controversies in Context.” Register here.
• 26 Mar 2019 (London, UK): Sponsored by The Economist, a 1-day symposium entitled “Antimicrobial Resistance: Preventing an antibiotic apocalypse.” Register here.
• 28 Mar 2019 (everywhere, 4-5.30p GMT): GARDP-sponsored webinar entitled “Clinical development for non-developers Part 3: Antibacterial Drug Enhancer Combinations and Non-traditional Products.” Register here.
• 1 Apr 2019 (University of California, Los Angeles): Longitude Prize AMR Diagnostic Workshop and evening Lecture on the Longitude Prize. Details here.
• 8 Apr 2019 (FDA White Oak Campus): Workshop entitled “Development of Antibacterial Drugs for the Treatment of Nontuberculous Mycobacterial Disease”. Register here.
• [NEW] 9 Apr 2019 (everywhere, 17:00-18:30 CEST): GARDP-sponsored webinar entitled “Mining Chemical Libraries for New Antibacterials.” Register here.
• 11-12 Apr 2019 (Amsterdam): ESGAP–SWAB (European Study Group for Antibiotic Policies – Stichting Werkgroep Antibioticabeleid) Technical Workshop on measuring quantity and quality of antimicrobial use. Register here. 
• 13-16 Apr 2019 (Amsterdam): Annual ECCMID meeting
• 16-18 Apr 2019 (Utrecht): ICOHAR, International Conference on One Health Antimicrobial Resistance. Organized by the ESCMID Study Group for Veterinary Microbiology (ESGVM).
• 24-26 Apr 2019 (Boston): Annual SHEA (Soc. for Hospital Epidemiology of America) Spring meeting
• 6-11 May 2019 (Ljubljana, Slovenia): 37th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases (ESPID). Details here.
• 20 May 2019 (everywhere): Application deadline for NIAID solicitation (HHS-NIH-NIAID-BAA2019-1) for proposals to support new vaccine or therapeutics candidates targeting antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. Go here for more details.
• 3-6 Jun 2019 (Philadelphia): Annual BIO meeting
• 10-11 June 2019 (Research Triangle Park, NC): AMR Action Summit on R&D and Commercialization. Sponsors include the British-American Business Council, the UK Gov’t, CARB-X, the NC Biotechnology Center, and others. Details here.
• 20-24 June 2019 (San Francisco): Annual ASM Microbe meeting.
• [Mark your calendar now!] 3-6 Sep 2019 (Boston). Annual ASM-ESCMID Conference on Antibiotic Development. The Bootcamp series will continue on 3 Sep with the main meeting on 4-6 Sep. Mark your calendar now and check back here for details.
• 6-8 Sep 2019 (Bilbao, Spain): 5th ESCMID conference on Vaccines. Check back here for details.
• 2-6 Oct 2019 (Washington, DC): IDSA’s annual IDWeek meeting.
• 19-27 Oct 2019 (Annecy, France): International Course on Antibiotics and Resistance (ICARe) – A soup-to-nuts intensive residential training program on all things AMR, especially R&D for new antibiotics. See this link for details.
• [Mark your calendar now!] 1-6 Mar 2020 (Il Ciocco, Tuscany, Italy): GRC on Antibacterial Discovery and Development: “Now is the time to re-boot antibiotic R&D before it’s too little, too late.” Not yet online, but the date is firm. Will share a link when it becomes available.