INN: How the AMR Action Fund is changing our approach to antibiotics

The Innovation News Network published a wide-ranging interview with AMR Action Fund CEO Henry Skinner. The interview focused on the Fund’s mission and accomplishments to date, as well as the need for policy reforms to attract private investment and the history of antibiotics.

Bacteria are incredible. They have been evolving for billions of years, and they will continue to evolve no matter what we throw at them. In fact, when Alexander Fleming won the Nobel Prize for his discovery of penicillin, he warned that the day would soon come when bacteria would evolve and become resistant to it.

Unfortunately, the drugs we use today to kill harmful bacteria haven’t evolved all that much since the days of Fleming. There was a flurry of pertinent discoveries in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, and then antibiotic R&D fell off a cliff. As resistant infections have emerged in recent decades, doctors have been forced to reach back in time and rely on very old antibiotics that can have some nasty side effects. Patients deserve better.

To drive innovation, though, we need to support and invest in scientists who are developing antibiotics that have new mechanisms of action for killing bacteria and that more precisely target bad bacteria. We also need better, faster, and more precise diagnostics so that clinicians can get the right drug to every patient.

Read the full article here.