CARB-X is awarding up to US$2.91 million to Evotec SE, a drug discovery and development company in Germany, to develop a new class of antibiotics to treat infections caused by deadly multidrug-resistant Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria.

Britain and India are expanding their existing scientific research collaboration with five new projects to tackle anti-microbial resistance (AMR) that could lead to important advances in the global fight against antibiotic-resistant bacteria and genes. The five projects are planned to start in September 2020. The UK is contributing £4 million from the UK Research and Innovation Fund for International Collaboration, and India is matching this with its own resources (£8 million in total). 

Dutch and US researchers have re-engineered non-druggable compounds that block the transmission and metabolism of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum.

Although new antibiotics are very much needed, they will only be most effective if they’re used sparingly — for the most critical of cases. This presents serious economic challenges to developing antibiotics.

The development and ultimate approval of tecovirimat for the antiviral treatment of smallpox, a disease that has been eradicated from the world for nearly 40 years, required a unique regulatory approach based on the US Food and Drug Administration's Animal Rule.

Using computer modelling, researchers were able to identify new drugs by building a reliable replica of the bacterial protein and then working out what the best orientation is for the drug to fit in the bacterial protein.

Accepting that antibiotics are infrastructure would change our relationship to the drugs, forcing us to recognize that medicine requires long-term planning.