Pfizer Commits $100M to Help Fight Rise of Antimicrobial Resistance

Pfizer recently announced that it pledged $100 million to the Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Action Fund to address the vital public health need for new antibiotics due to the rapid rise of antibiotic-resistant infections.

The AMR Action Fund is a collaboration among more than 20 biopharmaceutical companies and intends to bring two to four new antibiotics to patients by 2030.

The Fund will partner with pharmaceutical companies, philanthropies, development banks, and multilateral organizations to renew and accelerate antibiotic development.

“As the COVID-19 pandemic has shown, we must invest in the development of medicines now so that we are prepared to help prevent the next public health crisis,” Albert Bourla, Pfizer chairman and chief executive, said in the announcement.

“We strongly believe the world cannot tackle the growing threat of AMR without collaboration – and that it will take a combination of prevention measures, responsible stewardship and innovative thinking to overcome existing obstacles. The new AMR Action Fund gives us the vehicle to do that by investing in and stimulating a potentially stronger pipeline for antimicrobial medicines.”

Pfizer  works with partners to close critical prevention and treatment gaps in infectious diseases around the world.

“We are committed to responsible antibiotic stewardship, and are proud to offer one of the largest and most accessible AMR surveillance programs in the world, called ATLAS – the only platform that provides public access to both antifungal and antibacterial resistance data through a single resource. ATLAS is accessible freely to anyone, anywhere via the Web or the ATLAS mobile application,” Pfizer stated.

Each year 700,000 people die from AMR. By 2050, it is estimated that AMR could claim as many as 10 million lives per year, the announcement said.To combat AMR, antibiotics should only be used when necessary to maintain their effectiveness.

Last week, more than 20 leading biopharmaceutical companies announced the launch of the AMR Action Fund.

At the time of the announcement, the companies had already raised nearly $1 billion new funding to support clinical research of innovative new antibiotics that are addressing the most resistant bacteria and life-threatening infections.

Overall, the Fund will focus on urgent public health needs. It will provide necessary financial resources, as well as important technical support to help biotech companies bring novel antibiotics to patients, the release stated.

“Unlike COVID-19, AMR is a predictable and preventable crisis. We must act together to rebuild the pipeline and ensure that the most promising and innovative antibiotics make it from the lab to patients,” Thomas Cueni, director general of the IFPMA, one of the organizers of the new fund, said in a statement.
“The AMR Action Fund is one of the largest and most ambitious collaborative initiatives ever undertaken by the pharmaceutical industry to respond to a global public health threat,” he added.

But therelease also mentioned that although the AMR Action Fund is an important step in addressing the challenge of AMR, policymakers across the globe must implement market-based reforms.

These include reimbursement reform and new pull incentives, to revitalize the antibiotics market and drive sustainable investments in antibiotic R&D.