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Antimicrobial resistance: a global health emergency

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Botanix has appeared in a must-read feature about antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in the latest edition of AusBiotech’s Australasian Biotechnology Journal.

It is titled, “Antimicrobial resistance: a global health emergency”.

A quote from WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, featured in the story, points to the importance of the work we are doing in this space:

“AMR is a slow tsunami that threatens to undo a century of medical progress. A record number of countries are now monitoring and reporting on antibiotic resistance to WHO”.

Read the full story on pages 52-54 here.

Why I think these small cap ASX shares will perform in 2021

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The Motley Fool’s Aaron Teboneras featured Botanix Pharmaceuticals as a top stock pick in an article today.

“At the time of writing, the Botanix share price is trading at 10 cents, up 7.5% for the day. With a market capitalisation of $97 million, if the company can perform to market expectations, its share price will soar.”

Read the full article here.

The PASTEUR Act

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Two US lawmakers have introduced a bipartisan bill to create a new payment model to encourage drug developers to develop new classes of antibiotics.

It’s called the PASTEUR Act, which will facilitate upfront payments to companies in exchange for unlimited access to their antibiotics. In turn, drug makers can recover their costs and turn a profit, before selling large volumes of product. 

Relevant extracts include:

  • An antimicrobial drug developer can apply to receive a ‘critical need antimicrobial’ designation
  • Contracts will range from $750 million to $3 billion and will be paid out over a period of up to 10 years or through the length of patent exclusivity

Botanix Pharmaceuticals wholeheartedly welcomes this news. As we enter a critical period of R&D for our BTX 1801 antimicrobial resistance (AMR) platform, this is a significant endorsement of the immediate need for novel antibiotics and further evidence of the world’s most powerful pharmaceutical influencers prioritising expedited and significant expenditure in this space.

Read a summary of the bill here.

This new antimicrobial resistance network could boost Recce, Botanix and Next Science

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Botanix Pharmaceuticals Executive Director, Matt Callahan, spoke with Stockhead about the global threat of antimicrobial resistance yesterday:

“The alarm bells have been going off the last five years (on antimicrobial resistance), but no one’s really believed that the global economy could be stopped and millions and millions of deaths could be caused by some kind of pathogen – but of course I think we all believe that now, sadly,” he said.

Read the full article here.

Australia’s first Antimicrobial Resistance Network forms to combat global health threat

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Botanix welcomes, wholeheartedly, today’s news from MTPConnect announcing the formation of an Australian-first network to address the impact of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) on human health.

The Australian Antimicrobial Resistance network – AAMRNet – was launched in response to urgent recommendations in a new report by MTPConnect, ‘Fighting Superbugs: A Report on the Inaugural Meeting of Australia’s Antimicrobial Resistance Stakeholders’.

Professor Geoffrey Coombs, member of the AAMRNet Steering Committee and President of the Australian Society for Antimicrobials, is involved in our BTX 1801 clinical study in Perth. We are fortunate to be collaborating with leaders in this sector to examine the full potential of our platform AMR product.

Addressing the impact of AMR is a foremost priority for our business. We look forward to supporting this network and contributing valuable clinical data to our combined efforts to address what is one of the most significant, pressing threats to global health.

Read more from MTPConnect here.

‘Superbugs’ a far greater risk than Covid in the Pacific, scientist warns

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The emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), including drug-resistant bacteria, or “superbugs”, pose far greater risks to human health than Covid-19, threatening to put modern medicine “back into the dark ages”, an Australian scientist has warned, ahead of a three-year study into drug-resistant bacteria in Fiji.

“If you thought Covid was bad, you don’t want anti-microbial resistance,” Dr Paul De Barro, biosecurity research director at Australia’s national science agency, the CSIRO, told The Guardian.

Read the full article on The Guardian here.

The marketplace for new antibiotics is fundamentally broken

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One of the mysteries of COVID-19 is why it kills some patients while sparing others with similar health profiles.

The answer to this will not prove singular, of course. But research published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet found that 50% of hospitalized patients who died of COVID-19 also had secondary bacterial infections. Some patients contracted these fatal infections from the very intensive care unit (ICU) ventilators that were intended to save them.

Read the full opinion editorial – written by President and CEO of Venatorx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. – on The Inquirer here.

Could Drug-Resistant Bacteria Cause The Next Pandemic?

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As humanity tallies the growing cost of Covid-19 in lives and capital, it must address the Grey Rhino threats posed by pathogenic bacteria. These are probable and impactful, but we neglect them despite their obviousness. Aided by modern humans’ mobility and by climate change, bacterial pathogens endanger everyone’s health. They are legion, varied, and constantly mutating. How can we best combat them?

Click HERE to read the article on Forbes.