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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.

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.