The speakers and panelists for the upcoming DRIVE-AB conference, Revitalizing the Antibiotic Pipeline, have now been announced. With representatives from a variety of stakeholder groups including the World Health Organization, the European Investment Bank, the European Commission, and various national Ministries and Departments of Health, among others, the discussions are expected to be robust, informative, and productive. The conference will take place on 5-6 September 2017 at the Crowne Plaza in Brussels. Aimed at global policy and decision makers, regulatory and public health experts, economists and representatives of the pharmaceutical, medical and civil society communities, the purpose of the conference is to:

1. communicate the consortium’s final recommendations...

The UN Secretary-General’s Interagency Coordination Group on Antimicrobial Resistance (IACG), whose establishment was mandated by the a UN General Assembly Resolution in 2016 calling for an ad hoc interagency coordination group to provide guidance on ensuring effective global action on AMR, is now inviting comments on the draft work plan for 2017-2019. The IACG’s first face-to-face meeting was held 2-3 May 2017 at UN Headquarters in New York. A second meeting was held by teleconference on 30 June 2017 to discuss the group’s work plan for 2017-2019. The work plan is now available on the WHO website for consultation and stakeholders...

The Duke-Margolis Centre for Health Policy in the United States has released a paper describing U.S. policy approaches that could provide better economic incentives to antimicrobial developers that successfully bring effective drugs to the market while providing a societal benefit that exceeds the cost of the incentive. The paper, "Value-based strategies for encouraging new devleopment of antimicrobial drugs", was released on 3 August with an accompanying viewpoint article in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Click here to read the full paper. Click here to read the Journal of the American Medical Association article....

In anticipation of the 2017 G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, on 7-8 July, the DRIVE-AB Steering Committee has published a commentary in The Lancet Infectious Diseases  today, 6 July, titled "To the G20 – Next steps for incentivizing antibacterial R&D". The commentary outlines a sample of preliminary recommendations and next steps that are relevant to the ongoing G20 proceedings and to G20 leaders. More detailed results and recommendations from the DRIVE-AB consortium as a whole will be presented at the final DRIVE-AB conference, "Revitalizing the Antibiotic Pipeline", in Brussels on 5-6 September 2017. Read moreComments are closed

DRIVE-AB regrets that ReAct has decided to leave the DRIVE-AB partnership. We believe that ReAct has contributed positively to the conversations and development of DRIVE-AB’s research. With ReAct leaving, we lose an important voice within the project to represent civil society. DRIVE-AB (www.drive-ab.eu) has been from the start a public-private partnership including 22 partners from large pharmaceutical companies, academia, and civil society, in other words, a contrasting mix of people with different experience, expertise and visions. This is the strength and the originality of the project, but also represents its major challenge. As the project developed, DRIVE-AB has had to adapt to a fast-moving environment due to political...