AMR Action Fund

The world is losing its most powerful tool in healthcare: antibiotics. The reason is rapidly rising antibiotic-resistant infections – also called antimicrobial resistance, or AMR. Superbugs resistant to antibiotics not only threaten lives, they undermine every aspect of modern medicine.

We urgently need new antibiotics, but there are few in the pipeline because of a paradox: despite the huge societal costs of AMR, there is no viable market for new antibiotics. New antibiotics are used sparingly to preserve effectiveness, so in recent years a number of antibiotic-focused biotechs have declared bankruptcy or exited this space due to the lack of commercial sustainability, leading to the loss of valuable expertise and resources. The result is a huge public health need for new antibiotics, but a lack of funding for antibiotic R&D, particularly the later stages of clinical research. This creates a “valley of death” between discovery and patient access.

To bridge this gap, more than 20 leading pharmaceutical companies are launching a ground-breaking collective venture, the AMR Action Fund, to bring 2 to 4 new antibiotics to patients by the end of the decade.

The companies have raised so far nearly US$1 billion new funding to support clinical research by biotechs of innovative new antibiotics that are addressing the highest priority public health needs (as defined by the WHO and CDC), including the most-resistant bacteria and life-threatening infections. The concept of the AMR Action Fund has been developed in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the Wellcome Trust. It aims governments to ensure there is a sustainable pipeline of new antibiotics to fight superbugs.

Together, we must act now to safeguard our future from this global threat.