The SAMRC has welcomed the recent announcement made by the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) and Shionogi & Co., Ltd. (Shionogi) about the execution of a license and technology transfer agreement with the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI). The announcement also includes a collaboration agreement that aims to significantly transform the landscape of access to antibiotics in 135 countries around the world.
The agreements will provide access to cefiderocol, an antibiotic for the treatment of serious Gram-negative bacterial infections, which may be resistant to other antibiotic treatments. Cefiderocol was recently added to the World Health Organization (WHO) Model List of Essential Medicines and targets a number of Gram-negative WHO priority pathogens. It was approved by the European Medicines Agency in 2020 and, separately, by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2019.
SAMRC President and CEO, Prof Glenda Gray, who is also a Board Member of GARDP, has lauded this revolutionary agreement and described it as evidence that collective global brainpower and partnerships can lead to the design of responsive health interventions such as cefiderocol. She further added that these agreements open the door to the next steps required to ensure approvals for the antibiotic in countries where the need is most urgent. “We will focus on working with key local stakeholders towards local regulatory approval of the antibiotic,” said Prof Gray.
Although the SAMRC was not directly involved in the cefiderocol project, the SAMRC funds local research on antimicrobial resistance with GARDP. We have been working with GARDP since its inception and this entity remains one of our close-associate organisations which supports our vision of building healthy populations through research, innovation and transformation. In 2021, the SAMRC renewed a funding agreement with GARDP to tackle drug-resistant infections by providing an additional R3.9 million for the development of new and improved antibiotic treatments for drug-resistant infections that pose the greatest threat to health. The funding would be used to expand South African-based research and development in neonatal sepsis, serious bacterial infections and sexually transmitted infections.
Shionogi, GARDP and CHAI full press release | Read More