The European capacity for antibiotic research and development requires

Antibiotic resistance is a global threat to public health. Modern healthcare systems rely on antibiotics to prevent and treat infections, and the need for new medicines is urgent. In a joint call to action, the AMR Accelerator projects call for long-term investments and stress the need to preserve European antibiotic research and development capacity by maintaining the funding, expertise and research infrastructures needed to develop new treatments for drug-resistant infections.

The need for new antibiotics is widely recognised, and on 26 September the United Nations General Assembly will accelerate policy action at a high-level meeting on antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The AMR Accelerator – a public-private partnership involving nine European projects and 98 organisations – is calling on government leaders and private actors to invest in antibiotic development and antimicrobial resistance research.

The call to action, published in Nature Reviews: Drug Researchstresses the need for coordinated action and commitments to address the threat of antimicrobial resistance and secure a sustainable future for European antibiotic development. The return on investment is low and many large pharmaceutical companies have abandoned the field. According to the authors, collaboration and risk sharing can help companies stay in anti-infective drug development.

“Without a long-term funding strategy for antibiotic research and development, there is a significant risk that the AMR Accelerator’s efforts to advance the antibacterial pipeline will be lost,” says Anders Karlén, Professor of Computational Drug Design at Uppsala University and coordinator of the COMBINE project, who is responsible for bringing together the AMR Accelerator projects.

The AMR Accelerator's portfolio ranges from discovery to Phase II clinical trials and covers both tuberculosis and Gram-negative bacteria. It represents a significant investment by the European Commission and the pharmaceutical industry. Funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative, the AMR Accelerator projects have a total budget of €479 million. Together, they have advanced 44 antibacterial programs over the past five years and to date, efforts have resulted in two completed Phase I trials and five ongoing Phase I and II trials. However, the funding is only temporary.

“The AMR Accelerator has successfully accelerated the development of promising therapeutics, but we need continued commitment to ensure that antibiotics reach the next stage of development and ultimately reach the patients who need them,” says Anders Karlén.

The success of the AMR Accelerator demonstrates the value of public-private partnerships in strengthening the antibiotic pipeline and providing tools and infrastructure to the global AMR research community. The AMR Accelerator has built critical mass and created synergies that enable organizations to share expertise and resources. The results are tangible: high-quality science, a stronger antibiotic pipeline, and a legacy of research infrastructures including standardized infection models, clinical trial networks, and open data resources. The key challenge for all nine projects is to ensure the long-term sustainability of assets, infrastructure, and expertise. The AMR Accelerator sends a clear message: we need commitment and investment from governments, industry, and other stakeholders to protect our capacity to develop life-saving antibiotics.

The call to action was published in the comments section of Nature Reviews: Drug ResearchThe text will be accessible free of charge on the journal website between 23 September and 6 October 2024. To access the article without a subscription after 6 October, please go to the AMR Accelerator website:

Disclaimer: This text reflects the views of the author. Neither IMI nor the European Union, EFPIA or associated partners are responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained herein.