Three new partners - LifeArc, Cepheid and Optum - have pledged additional funding and resources to the Fleming Initiative's global effort to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR), as leading medical expert Professor Lord Ara Darzi calls for tighter restrictions on the use of antibiotics.
Established by Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, the Fleming Initiative brings together research scientists, policymakers, clinicians, behavioural experts, public and commercial partners to provide the networks, expertise and skills to provide equitable solutions to AMR at the global scale.
The announcement comes at a critical moment. For only the second time, world leaders are preparing to gather for a United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) meeting on AMR in New York.
In the United States, someone contracts a drug-resistant infection every 11 seconds on average, and every 15 minutes someone dies. Other countries are grappling with even more AMR cases and deaths.
AMR is a critical global public health threat, largely driven by the misuse and overuse of antimicrobial drugs in animals, humans and plants.
This has led to a global rise in drug-resistant infections that requires an urgent, concerted multidisciplinary and multi-partner response.
The Fleming Initiative is poised to tackle the issue head on and break down many of the current barriers to progress.
The three new partners announced today – LifeArc, Cepheid and Optum - bring invaluable world-leading expertise across diagnostics, global health data and research translation to the Initiative.
We urgently need action to address AMR, which is why I will be calling for the ambition of no antibiotic prescriptions without a diagnosis by 2035. Professor Lord Ara Darzi Chair of the Fleming Initiative
They join a growing number of partners, including GSK, and philanthropists who together have helped to reach an initial funding milestone of £100m to begin a global programme of work – just one year since the funding appeal was launched by HRH Prince William.
Chair of the Fleming Initiative, Professor Lord Ara Darzi, and president of Imperial College London, Professor Hugh Brady, will use the opportunity at UNGA to call for urgent measures to restrict the use of antibiotics without prescription in order to protect these lifesaving drugs and ensure they remain a vital tool in our arsenal against infections.
Speaking from UNGA in New York, Professor the Lord Darzi of Denham, Chair of the Fleming Initiative, said: "Antimicrobial resistance represents one of the most significant public health threats facing the global population.
"Only by mobilising action and resources across countries, sectors and industries will we start to make progress at the pace and scale that is required."
"We urgently need action to address AMR, which is why I will be calling for the ambition of no antibiotic prescriptions without a diagnosis by 2035.
"The Fleming Initiative has a unique approach to tackling the multifaceted challenge of AMR: bringing together world-class expertise in science, technology, policy and behavioural science alongside clinical experience, through a global network of centres, to find, test, and scale solutions to AMR.
"Our new partners bolster the Initiative as world leaders in research commercialisation, diagnostics and global health data."
Global programmes to tackle AMR
With the funding and support of partners, the Fleming Initiative will launch global programmes of work to address the drivers of AMR, develop international networks of AMR expertise, and outline strategic research themes to rapidly advance solutions to these urgent challenges, including:
- Leading state-of-the-art drug discovery using AI and machine learning and rapid high throughput experimentation for new therapeutics
- Developing diagnostics to improve early detection, prevent transmission and enable specific treatments
- Slowing the rising tide of fungal antimicrobial resistance (fAMR)
- Understanding the links between AMR, climate change and the environment to better map and predict the emergence and transmission of new resistant infections.
Lord Darzi, who is an honorary consultant surgeon at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Professor of Surgery at Imperial College London, continued: "We're delighted that LifeArc and Cepheid have joined us at the start of our journey to fight antimicrobial resistance, but this is just the beginning.
