Industry Alliance Report: Companies Invest In AMR R&D, Need More Pull Incentives

An alliance of over a hundred industries seeking to curb antimicrobial resistance launched its first report today. According to the report, a number of companies are heavily investing in research and development, and work to improve access to their diagnostic products and preventing therapies.

The AMR Industry Alliance, which includes over 100 biotech, diagnostics, generics and research-based biopharmaceutical companies and trade associations launched its first report [pdf], showing efforts by the industry in tackling the global antimicrobial resistance problem. The alliance stems from the 2016 Industry Declaration on AMR at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

According to a press release of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA), in 2016, 22 Alliance companies invested at least US$2 billion in research and development, and more than two out of three Alliance companies have strategies, policies or plans in place to improve access to their AMR-relevant products.

The report is based on analysis of the data collected from the survey responses of 36 percent of Alliance member companies on their AMR-relevant products. According to the report, the responding companies reported 10 antibiotics with activity against WHO priority pathogens, 13 AMR-relevant vaccine candidates, and 18 AMR-relevant diagnostic products.

However, according to the report, industry investment is threatened as the large majority of responding companies viewed current progress on R&D incentives as although promising, insufficient relative to the challenge. Companies called for new pull incentives to support new R&D across the full R&D life cycle, to see an impactful long-term change on the pipeline of new products.