Actavis creates collaborative program to improve care for patients with multidrug-resistant infections

May 27 2015

Actavis plc (NYSE: ACT), a leading global specialty pharmaceutical company committed to infectious disease treatment innovation, today announced the creation of SHARE ID™ (Sharing Hospital data to Advance Research and Enhance patient care in Infectious Diseases), a collaborative program to leverage real-world data to advance the delivery and effectiveness of care for patients with serious infections due to antibiotic-resistant pathogens.

SHARE ID is building a robust and collaborative research platform for the infectious disease community to accelerate efforts addressing antibiotic-resistant infections. SHARE ID will be administered by HITLAB, an independent healthcare innovation and teaching lab in New York City. By partnering with multiple hospitals and leveraging real-world data from participating institutions with state-of-the-art analytics, SHARE ID intends to quantify the burden of illness associated with infections due to antibiotic-resistant pathogens, develop decision support tools to assist healthcare decision makers in treating patients with serious infections due to antibiotic-resistant pathogens, and conduct comparative effectiveness research to identify optimal treatment strategies for patients with antibiotic-resistant infections.

"We are excited to actively support SHARE ID and launch this important collaborative effort that will advance our understanding of the burdens and unmet medical needs caused by multidrug-resistant infections," said Brenton L. Saunders, Actavis President and CEO. "Our commitment is to gain a better understanding of persistent challenges in the treatment of serious infectious diseases, and then to find and advance healthcare solutions to address this problem for the right patient at the right time."

SHARE ID will focus its initial efforts on the deadly Gram-negative infections identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as urgent public health concerns. According to the CDC, carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) is one of the top three high-consequence antibiotic-resistant threats in the United States today. More than 70 strains of these modern "nightmare bacteria" have been identified since 1997, including E. coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae, and these infections have a mortality rate greater than 40 percent. Multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa, defined by the CDC as a serious public health threat, is also a common cause of healthcare-associated infections including pneumonia, bloodstream infections, urinary tract infections and surgical site infections. Of 6,700 infections reported by the CDC in 2013, 440 resulted in the death of the patient.

"Our ultimate mission is very straightforward – we want to save lives," said steering committee co-chair, Thomas Lodise, PharmD. PhD, Associate Professor, Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, and Infectious Diseases Clinical Pharmacist, Stratton VA Medical Center. "We want to improve patient outcomes, reduce antimicrobial resistance and minimize the spread of antibiotic-resistant pathogens. We will actively pursue scientific questions of interest, support antimicrobial stewardship and promote awareness of critical infectious disease challenges. The goal is to use the collective clinical experience of practitioners in the field to inform best treatment practices and optimize real-world care."

Health systems joining the research effort will gain valuable evidence-driven insights by analysis of real-world data to address institutional and patient needs specific to the management of serious infections caused by antibiotic-resistant pathogens. SHARE ID members will have an opportunity to join a community of world-class infectious disease experts and participate on committees, attend SHARE ID meetings and discuss research-related outcomes with peers, among other activities.

The increasing prevalence of difficult-to-treat infections caused by bacteria resistant to most available antibiotics pose a significant risk to public health. Despite this critical situation, healthcare practitioners currently have little data regarding where these pathogens are most prevalent and how best to manage infections due to antibiotic-resistant pathogens.

"The multi-center research effort anchored in real-world evidence is a novel approach to accelerating our understanding of resistant infections," said James A. McKinnell, Assistant Professor and Infectious Diseases Specialist, Harbor UCLA Medical Center, Torrance Memorial Medical Center, and co-chair of the steering committee. "Hospitals participating in this effort will be able to benchmark their experience against that of other organizations while also helping to identify how to better treat patients grappling with these deadly infections."

Founding steering committee members are:

• Thomas Lodise, PharmD. PhD, Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (co-chair)
• James A. McKinnell, MD, Harbor UCLA Medical Center (co-chair)
• Abdulrahman M. El-Sayed, MD, PhD, Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health
• Ebbing Lautenbach, MD, MPH, MSCE, University of Pennsylvania
• Michael D. Murray, PharmD, MPH, FISPE, Purdue University College of Pharmacy and Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Effectiveness Research
• Shailja Dixit, MD, MS, MPH, Actavis
• Stan Kachnowski, Prof. - IIT New Delhi, Fellow – RSM, Chair, HITLAB

SHARE ID will be coordinated by HITLAB, in conjunction with Actavis.