Global pharmaceutical industry response to G7 communiqués on antimicrobial resistance

The global pharmaceutical industry welcomes the G7 Health and Finance meeting communiqués and the commitment to address antimicrobial resistance (AMR), one of the top 10 global public health threats facing humanity.

While tackling the COVID-19 pandemic is an urgent global health priority, AMR continues annually to be responsible for 700,000 deaths, and the numbers are increasing year on year by 4%.

By 2050, AMR could cause 10 million deaths a year. Usage of antibiotics has risen during the coronavirus crisis, and underscores, all the more, the importance of encouraging appropriate use, improving surveillance to track resistant bacteria, and finding lasting solutions to improve the innovation pipeline for new antibiotics by providing incentives for pharmaceutical companies to create new, affordable antibiotics.

Industry welcomes the concrete commitment for Health and Finance Ministers to work together with the industry to “strengthen market incentives for antibiotic drug development”.

Working together is needed to overcome the economic challenges and the industry stands ready and willing to contribute our expertise to make sure that the eventual proposals will achieve the intended results and attract R&D investment.

To this end, industry welcomes the stated intention to develop principles that assess the value of innovation in, access to and good stewardship of novel antibiotics, with a view to these being applied to new incentive mechanisms.