NICE assessments could be reformed in the new superbug plan

The UK government has released a new five-year plan to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR), including a new NICE-backed NHS reimbursement scheme, which encourages the pharmaceutical sector to develop new antibiotics.

Health Secretary Matt Hanbad announced the new plan at the World Economic Forum in Davos to raise global awareness of the magnitude of the problem.

In recent decades, the development of new antibiotics has virtually stopped, as major pharmaceutical companies do not think the low return on investment is worth it.

An independent study of AMR by economist Jim O'Neill and commissioned by former Prime Minister David Cameron and published in the summer of 2016, has already blamed the shortage of new antibiotics for a "market failure" that does not reward enough R & D

At the same time, more and more older drug-resistant bacterial strains are emerging, which could kill 10 million people each year by 2050, according to the report's estimates.

The new five-year action plan 2019-2024 builds on a five-year document covering the past five years and came with a 20-year vision on how to combat antimicrobial resistance.

The paper proposes to separate payments to companies from volumes of drugs sold and to base payments on a valuation of their value driven by NICE – but the document does not give more details about how the system works.

This will be supported by better stewardship to minimize the chances of resistant strains.

The five-year document also sets a series of goals to ensure the achievement of the 20-year vision, including halving health-related Gram-negative blood flow infections and reducing the use of antimicrobial agents. % by 2024.

The plan also aims to report the percentage of prescriptions supported by a diagnostic test or decision support tool by 2024.

Mike Thompson, Managing Director of the British Pharmaceutical Industries Association (ABPI), said: "We have been working closely with the government for two years and the pharmaceutical companies are ready and waiting to start testing a new model for support R & D on antibiotics. in 2019.

"The UK has demonstrated international leadership in raising the profile of this global health threat and is now strengthening its commitment to finding solutions to the problems that have so long been hampering the development of new medicines."

Dr. Peter Jackson, executive director of The AMR Center, the public-private body that funds and coordinates research on new antibiotics and diagnostics, is involved in projects with three pharmaceutical companies in the UK, Sweden and in the United States: "The announcement today by the British government of the launch of an attempt to evaluate a new way for the National Health Service (NHS) to pay for antibiotics is the # 1 This is a crucial step expected by the world and is very welcome for RAM researchers. "

Steve Bates, CEO of the BioIndustry Association, representing British biotechs, said: "The UK market represents only 3% of the global medicines market and AMR drugs are being developed for a global market, the greatest value of this move British will be his potential. continued political leadership to encourage other countries to develop reimbursement mechanisms for anti-AMR drug developers adapted to their own health systems. "

Dr. Chris Doherty, General Manager of Alderley Park in Cheshire, the UK's largest single-site bio campus, which brings together several companies working on new antibiotics and diagnostics, said, "We are pleased to see that the market fails in the development of antibiotic drugs. the new government strategy. AMR is a complex challenge, but science can only solve it if the funding mechanism for this unique problem is reworked. The consequences of such a failure would affect us all. "