New global group formed to fight antimicrobial resistance

A new global group has been formed by a range of life science organisations to help combat the threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

Global Alliance Against Antibiotic Resistance has been formed by the Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group (ARLG), part of the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI) and the University Medical Center (UMC) Utrecht, the managing entity of the COMBACTE (Combatting Bacterial Resistance in Europe) consortium.

The collaboration will conduct work across a range of areas, including joint design and implementation of clinical research, working meetings at scientific conferences, cross-entity working groups with diverse functional group participation, clinical trial innovations, data and protocol exchanges, and, contractual, regulatory, and systems harmonisation.

“We at the ARLG have long admired the work being done by COMBACTE to increase the efficacy of antimicrobial drug development,” said Vance Fowler, an investigator at the DCRI and co-principal investigator of the ARLG. “Combining our efforts will allow us to maximize the work we both do to stop the advancement of antibacterial resistance.”

Since 2013, both ARLG and COMBACTE have been working towards helping fight AMR and will now share their work to avoid any duplicate efforts in clinical research.

As part of the agreement, ARLG will have the opportunity to lead US based studies for all clinical research initiated by COMBACTE, with COMBACTE doing the same for ARLG projects in Europe.

“We have already made efforts to expand our reach across Europe, where an increasing number of people suffer from infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria,” said Marc Bonten, MD, coordinator of COMBACTE and a professor at UMC Utrecht. “But by collaborating and sharing our progress with the ARLG, we can make a truly global impact beyond this population — an important consideration in a globally connected era in which epidemics travel across oceans quickly.”

Earlier this year the European Clinical Research Alliance on Infectious Diseases (ECRAID) was formed, merging COMBACTE’s more than 850 clinical trial sites and 650 laboratories with the network of primary care sites coordinated by The Platform for European Preparedness Against (Re-)Emerging Epidemics (PREPARE). This was done to form a European-wide sustainable clinical research organisation for infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance. Now, ARLG will help to expand these efforts outside of Europe

“This is an exciting year for PREPARE to expand its work in reducing a serious public health threat,” said Herman Goossens, MD, coordinator of PREPARE and professor at University of Antwerp and UMC Utrecht. “First, we joined forces with COMBACTE by forming ECRAID, and now, we welcome a partnership with the ARLG, which will help all three organisations leverage a wider set of resources and a deeper pool of expertise.”