Unlikely bedfellows join to track efforts to fight superbugs

In a column being published first in The Pharma Letter, Thomas Cueni, Director General of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA), looks at how the life sciences industry is working together to tackle antimicrobial resistance.

In January 2016, more than 100 companies and industry associations had signed a  Declaration on Combatting Antimicrobial Resistance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, followed by a  Roadmap of several big pharma at the UN High-Level Meeting in September 2016 – a common framework of principles for global measures to curb the development of antibiotic resistance. The "AMR Industry Alliance" now links these two initiatives together and will ensure that the signatories collectively deliver on the commitments made.

It is pretty rare for players in the highly competitive life sciences industry to share their plans. But this is exactly what big research pharma companies and generics manufacturers, as well as biotech and diagnostic companies have agreed is needed to reduce the increasingly worrying human and economic toll of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Last week at the  B20 Health Conference in Berlin, the " AMR Industry Alliance" was launched. Over the coming year, the Alliance is going to track progress on how they are doing to live up to their side of the bargain in the fight against AMR.