UK group suggests $2 billion fund to develop antibiotics

To help address the growing problem of antibiotic resistance and the lack of new antibiotics in the pipeline, a new report commissioned by the UK government recommends establishing a $2 billion "global innovation fund" and separating drug companies' profits from drug sales, according to a news release from Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, which published the report, its third in a series.

The report recommends three types of targeted interventions: (1) paying successful pharmaceutical companies to support the highest-priority antibiotics, (2) committing more funding to early-stage research, and (3) fostering innovative partnerships between academia and industry during early development steps.

As a "pump-priming" measure, the report says the $2 billion innovation fund would be established by drug companies and would be used for basic research on bacterial resistance, improved diagnostics, and studies of the efficacy of old antibiotics.

The report proposes a system in which a global organization would have the authority to commit lump-sum payments to successful drug developers. "Such an approach would 'de-link' the profitability of a drug from its volume of sales, supporting conservation goals by eliminating the commercial imperative for a drug company to sell new antibiotics in large quantities—a key factor in contributing to the development and spread of resistance," the report says.

The Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, often called the O'Neill Commission, is chaired by former Goldman Sachs economist Jim O'Neill. The group said in a news release that an investment of $16 billion to $37 billion over 10 years could achieve a substantially revitalized antibiotic pipeline. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that antibiotic resistance costs $20 billion a year in excess US healthcare costs.
May 14 full report
May 14 Review on Antimicrobial Resistance news release

Indiana HIV study shows same strain, recent introduction

A preliminary analysis of HIV samples from 72 people infected in Indiana's HIV outbreak shows that nearly all have the same strain, which was introduced to the region within the last 6 to 12 months, the Associated Press (AP) reported yesterday, citing state health officials and the CDC, where experts conducted the study.

Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) spokesman Ken Severson told the AP that 69 of 72 people whose samples were tested had the same strain.

The findings are a stark reminder of how rapidly HIV can spread among intravenous drug users, Beth Meyerson, PhD, with Indiana University's Rural Center for AIDS/HIV Prevention, said.

A CDC official told the AP that the agency is working to determine if the strain in Indiana has been detected elsewhere and is related to other strains. In an update yesterday, the ISDH said 155 infections have been detected so far, 154 confirmed and 1 preliminary positive.

The outbreak, which surfaced in March, has affected a rural community centered in Scott County in southeastern Indiana. The outbreak prompted the state's governor to declare a health emergency and the CDC to issue a Health Alert Network warning, urging states to look for other similar clusters.

A profile in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report said the outbreak occurred in area that has a high unemployment rate and poor access to healthcare. It described multigenerational injection drug abuse of prescription opioid oxymorphone within households that has been going on for about the past decade.
May 14 AP report
May 14 ISDH update
Apr 24 CIDRAP News story "Indiana HIV outbreak grows, prompts national alert"