Geneva, Switzerland, Monday 6^th October 2014 - DRIVE-AB (Driving Reinvestment in R&D and Responsible Antibiotic Use), a public-private consortium funded by the EU Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), was delighted to hold its inaugural meeting which announced the launch of a €9.3million project to tackle the dual crisis of antimicrobial resistance and re-stimulate Pharma interest in antibiotic research and development. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Through a series of plenary discussions and break out sessions the expert consortium looked at work plans for delivering new economic models for antibiotic discovery and development and evaluation of the responsible use of new and old...

The European Commission has announced the launch, in 2015, of a new €1 million prize on Diagnostics: Reducing the Mis-use of Antibiotics Prize. The Prize will reward a rapid test that can identify at the point of care patients with upper respiratory tract infections that can be managed safely without antibiotics. Awarded under the European Commission Horizon 2020 prize programme, this award is a different, but complementary initiative, to the £10 million Longitude Prize 2014 for Antibiotics that was launched on the 6th October....

In order to tackle growing levels of antimicrobial resistance, the challenge set for the Longitude Prize is to create a cost-effective, accurate, rapid and easy-to-use test for bacterial infections that will allow health professionals worldwide to administer the right antibiotics at the right time. The infection community was delighted when the public voted antibiotics for the £10 million prize fund and the Longitude Committee is currently receiving proposals from all stakeholders - from amateur scientists to the professional scientific community - for ideas on how to try and solve it. Nesta and the Longitude Committee will consider all suggestions received and will work to finalise the...