Antimicrobial Benchmark For Industry Launched In Davos

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Across the Swiss Alps from this week’s World Health Organization Executive Board meeting, the first-ever antimicrobial resistance benchmark was launched today at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos.

The Antimicrobial Resistance Benchmark 2018 [pdf] was presented in Davos, Switzerland during a press conference by Jayasree Iyer, executive director of the Access to Medicines Foundation.

Jayasree Iyer, Executive Director of the Access to Medicines Foundation

The benchmark is the first independent analysis of what the most active players in the pharmaceutical industry are doing to slow the emergence of drug resistance, Iyer said. The issue of antimicrobial resistance is high on the international agenda, she remarked, and was discussed in Davos two years ago. The next benchmark will be issued in two years.

The Access to Medicines Foundation is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Kingdom, and the Dutch governments, she said, and the Antimicrobial Resistance Benchmark is supported by both the UK and the Dutch governments.

The benchmark seeks to clarify the role of the pharmaceutical industry, she said, and what is expected from them in tackling the issue of growing resistance to antibiotics. Apart from developing new medicines and vaccines, the industry is also expected to manufacture antibiotics responsibly so that their factory waste water does not release antibiotics into the environment, and that products are promoted and distributed carefully so they are available but not overused.

The benchmark compares 30 companies selected based on their market presence, expertise, and public commitments to tackling AMR; 8 large research-based pharmaceutical companies, 10 generic medicine manufacturers, and 12 biopharmaceutical companies, according to the benchmark. GlaxoSmithKline and Johnson & Johnson provided the most activities in the broadest range of areas, Yyer said.

The most proactive generic companies were Mylan, Cipla and Fresenius Kabi, according to the benchmark, and the strongest performance of the 12 biopharmaceutical companies was from Entasis.

There are currently 28 antibiotics in clinical testing that target tough pathogens, but only nine of them are truly novel, she said.

If important products are being developed, there are too few to replace the antimicrobials now losing effectiveness, the benchmark found, calling for governments and other funders to act to ensure the AMR market “can offer sufficient commercial incentive to keep pharmaceutical companies active in this space.”

The benchmark suggests commitments to develop additional market-sharing mechanisms, supporting access objectives, stewardship, global supply, and quality. The document also suggests that governments and non-governmental organisations forge partnerships with pharmaceutical companies to ensure AMR supplies are sufficient to meet demand, with reliable supp0ly chains, and “support pharmaceutical companies in managing the access and stewardship of antimicrobials.”

She underlined the fact that some companies are changing the ways they encourage sales of antimicrobials, instead rewarding sale staff for selling more antibiotics, they reward staff on technical knowledge and service level.

Poorer countries are on the frontline of AMR and lack reliable access to medicines and medical advice, she said, adding that the most important thing is for multistakeholders to act.

For Paul Stoffels, executive vice-president and chief scientist at Johnson & Johnson, speaking at the briefing, AMR is a “disaster waiting to happen.” He said the company has developed a new medicine to address multi-resistance tuberculosis, which took 9 years to develop. Johnson & Johnson has applied differential pricing, allowing some 40,000 patients to access the medicine. He called for a “sustainable ecosystem,” for academic research, regulators and industry, so that medicines can reach the patients and be profitable at the same time.

Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, said several governments are stepping up, such as the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, India, China, and the US. Innovation will go where the money is, so will young academics, he said, and the issue of AMR needs to be made attractive. Philanthropy, industry and governments are stepping up, but not so academia yet, he said, and there is no societal push on AMR at the moment.

 

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