Antibiotic R&D Group To Screen Pharma Chemical Libraries For Antibacterial Compounds

The Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) and the pharmaceutical companies Eisai and Takeda signed an agreement this week for GARDP to access and screen the chemical libraries of Eisai and Takeda with the hope of finding chemical compounds with antibacterial properties.

“Through this screening, GARDP seeks to identify novel compounds suitable for further optimization and development,” the group said in a press release.

The Institut Pasteur Korea will test the chemical libraries “against bacteria identified as a critical priority for research and development of new antibiotics in WHO’s global priority pathogen list,” it said.

“With few antibiotics in development,” the release explained, “antimicrobial resistance is a major and rapidly growing global public health concern.”

“GARDP is very excited about this partnership. Not only can partnerships like this accelerate the discovery of new antibiotics, they can also support the pharmaceutical sector in staying engaged in antibiotic R&D,” Seamus O’Brien, research and development director at GARDP, said in the release.

“Overcoming antibacterial resistance is key to achieve universal health coverage. GARDP’s approach allows us to develop a drug from early exploratory to preclinical and clinical studies all the way to patients,” he said.

More information on GARDP can be found here.

 

Image Credits: GARDP.

Combat the infodemic in health information and support health policy reporting from the global South. Our growing network of journalists in Africa, Asia, Geneva and New York connect the dots between regional realities and the big global debates, with evidence-based, open access news and analysis. To make a personal or organisational contribution click here on PayPal.