Royal Society of Chemistry: Who Will Pay for the New Antibiotics?

Chemistry World, a publication of the Royal Society of Chemistry, published a deeply reported article examining the market challenges affecting antimicrobial development and how policymakers can help address these challenges.

Henry Skinner, CEO of the AMR Action Fund, is quoted throughout the piece, discussing the importance of pull incentives, the work of the fund, and the need for all stakeholders to make significant and timely contributions to the challenge.

As the article notes,

"The bottom line is that the antibiotic business model is broken and pharma needs incentives to reward it for investing in the space. ‘Providing push incentives without providing pull incentives is like building a bridge halfway across a raging river,’ explains Henry Skinner, chief executive of the AMR Action Fund. ‘It will allow you to get moving but eventually you’re going to plunge off the end and drown.’

The AMR Action Fund was launched in July 2020 with support from more than 20 pharma companies in a bid to avoid that scenario and give an immediate lifeline to small firms. It was described as a stopgap initiative where companies would contribute $1 billion to invest in small biotechs, along with big pharma know-how, to help push promising drugs through phase 2 and 3 development with the goal of bringing two to four new antibiotics to market by 2030. It was essentially seen as ‘buying time’ to allow governments to get their houses in order and introduce sufficient pull incentives for the industry.

Last year, the first year the fund was operational, it committed approximately $100 million in capital, with a similar figure expected by the end of this year, Skinner says. ‘That’s a significant infusion of cash for a field of medicine that has been starved of private investment for the last two decades.’"

Read the full article at Chemistry World.