Industry supports bid to revitalise antibiotic research
pharmafile | November 17, 2011 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | EFPIA, Europe, IMI, antibiotic
The European Commission and the European pharma industry have unveiled plans to accelerate the discovery and development of new antibiotics.
Antibiotic resistance – where bacteria mutate and render existing treatments useless against infection – is a growing threat around the world.
But researchers in academia and in pharma face a number of obstacles to developing new treatments, which include technical R&D problems, regulatory barriers, and a lack of market incentives to invest in antimicrobial research.
In response to the problem, the European Commission has now launched a strategy and action plan which it hopes will accelerate work in the field.
European pharma industry body EFPIA is working closely with the EC on the project, and welcomed the announcement.
EFPIA President and GSK chief executive Andrew Witty said: “Antibiotic resistance is a major challenge throughout the world and one that we need to take seriously. It is a challenge that the pharmaceutical industry wants to be part of solving.”
He says the industry is committed to working with other stakeholders to find a new approach which allows research to be ‘re-stimulated, re-started’ that will help create a new medicines chest of effective antibiotics.
“So that when we do have a fundamental bacterial challenge, we are able to protect ourselves,” said Witty.
The partners say they want to ‘kick-start’ the process of revitalising antibiotic research, with new investment and new co-ordination of work in the area.
The Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) is Europe’s largest public-private initiative, and is jointly-funded by EFPIA and the European Commission. The €2 billion fund aims to speed-up the development of better and safer medicines across therapy areas, and the IMI is now considering a new large-scale programme to contribute to the discovery and development of novel antibiotic drugs to treat the most urgent infections.
The Commission is also contributing to efforts to boost research efforts and stimulate the co-ordination of research activities within the EU.
Richard Bergström, director-general of EFPIA said: “This programme of collaborative research needs to facilitate the involvement of large and small pharmaceutical companies and the antimicrobial research community at large. This is very new ground for the industry, and over the course of the next few months we will be finalising the details, but the shape we hope to create for the initiative is clear.”
The collaboration will aim to enhance efficiency and competition between companies, sharing their expertise in R&D, and could extend to an ‘unprecedented sharing of data’ among companies, including successes, failures and information on older products.
“This collaboration should support activities across the whole research and development process, including the very-challenging process of drug development, which is recognised as a major stumbling block in bringing new antibiotics to patients. In all of this, we believe that it is important to retain a competitive dynamic which will ensure that innovative approaches are developed. We face not just a lack of new antibiotics, but also a lack of novelty in those that are coming forward.”
Mr Bergström says there is a need to improve regulatory pathways which will make conducting clinical trials in the area less problematic.
“Currently, there are too many situations in which it is no longer feasible to conduct trials. We welcome the transatlantic dialogue that has already taken place on these issues and urge that it continue.”
He added that a longer-term goal would be to build on IMI’s work and integrate it with the Commission’s vision for Horizon 2020, the next research programme of the EU.
“Above all we need to ensure that investment in antibiotic R&D is strengthened,” he concluded. “Our shared goal is more investment and more targeted investment in both public and private sector. EFPIA and its member companies look forward to building on today’s announcement to make that vision a reality.”
Andrew McConaghie
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