GARDP and Evotec partner to tackle growing threat of antimicrobial resistance

Reviewed by Alina Shrourou, B.Sc. (Editor)Mar 19 2019

The Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) and Evotec AG are today announcing the formation of a new strategic public-private partnership to tackle the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). By joining forces, Evotec and GARDP will leverage their capabilities and networks to address drug-resistant bacterial infections. This includes bringing together GARDP's clinical expertise and sustainable access commitment with Evotec's leading drug discovery platform, expertise in medicinal chemistry and pharmacology as well as its world-leading collection of bacterial pathogens.

With few antibiotics in development, AMR is a major and rapidly growing global health challenge that is making previously easy to treat infections harder to treat. Approximately 700,000 people worldwide die of drug-resistant infections every year and this number is expected to increase significantly in the future.¹ Serious bacterial infections, and in particular Gram-negative bacterial infections, have been identified by the WHO as a global public health priority.²

This strategic partnership focuses on accelerating the development of first-in-class antibiotic treatments for hard-to-treat bacterial infections by establishing a platform that spans the length of the drug development value chain as well as developing a joint pipeline. Of critical importance is also to ensure that novel antibiotics are sensibly priced and made available globally to all patients who need them.

"Partnerships are central to GARDP's model. Working with Evotec will undoubtedly strengthen GARDP's efforts to develop new antibiotics, while addressing the need for their sustainable access. Evotec's expertise complements GARDP's approach, which allows both partners to develop a drug from early exploratory to preclinical and clinical studies all the way to patients." said Seamus O'Brien, Research and Development Director at GARDP. "Developing treatments to treat drug-resistant bacterial infections is key to achieve universal health coverage."

Dr Cord Dohrmann, Chief Scientific Officer of Evotec, commented: "The development of resistance to antimicrobials is likely to accelerate and the need for new antibiotics is beyond urgent. Unfortunately, the number of companies engaged in antimicrobial drug discovery is continuously decreasing due to scientific and commercial challenges. Evotec and GARDP are committed to explore new models to leverage cutting-edge discovery platforms to highly innovative and promising projects that have the potential to yield novel classes of antibiotics directed against high priority pathogens. GARDP perfectly complements Evotec in vision and strategy and we are extremely proud to have them as a strategic partner."