UK government establishes antimicrobial resistance plan | Business



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The UK government has presented a five-year national action plan outlining how the UK will help contain and control the growing global problem of antimicrobial resistance. This vision, coupled with a 20-year long-term vision, follows the five-year plan begun in 2013.

In the absence of action, the government estimates that antibiotic resistance is expected to kill 10 million people a year by 2050 and make routine operations extremely dangerous. Since 2014, the use of antibiotics in the UK has decreased by 7% and 40% in food producing animals. Still, the number of drug-resistant blood infections has increased by 35% by 2017.

An image showing an antimicrobial susceptibility test

The plan aims to reduce by 10% the number of drug-resistant infections by 2025 and reduce by 15% the consumption of antibiotics in humans. It also aims to prevent 15,000 healthcare-related infections by 2024.

No new clbad of antibiotics has been discovered since the 1980s. The hope is that existing antibiotics can remain effective longer by reducing resistant infections and helping clinicians get an appropriate prescription. .

"We need to reach a stage where antibiotics are not perceived by patients as a" catch-all "for each disease, but rather as a serious drug option, usually reserved when all other treatment options have failed or have been deemed inappropriate. "Helen Stokes-Lampard, President of the Royal College of GPs." This is a problem that affects the whole of society and can in no way be held responsible. "

Because the new antibiotics that treat resistant bacteria will, rightly, be reserved for the infections for which they are really needed, the limited market makes little incentive for the for-profit pharmaceutical industry to invent new ones. The National Institute for Excellence in Health and Care (Nice) and the NHS England will examine a new payment model that pays companies based on the value of their antibiotics for the NHS, rather than the volume of sales .

The industry is pleased with this. "We have been working closely with the government for two years and pharmaceutical companies are poised to wait to start testing a new model of antibiotic R & D support in 2019," said Mike Thompson, director of the 39, British Association of Pharmaceutical Industries. .

"It's great to see the UK government and the NHS commit to exploring a new model for paying for antibiotics in our market," said Steve Bates, General Manager of the BioIndustry Association. "It is essential to ensure that these incentives work for innovative small biotech companies and their investors, as we continue to see established players disinvest," he added. It is important that political leadership inspires similar mechanisms in other countries.

Resistance is a global problem. Other initiatives include the Global R & D Partnership on Antibiotics, supported by the World Health Organization, and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative. It recently signed an agreement with Eisai and Takeda to allow the Pasteur Korea Institute to screen parts of their chemical libraries for new compounds with antibacterial activity and received a 50 million euro investment from the German government.

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