Another key target is promoting innovation and access. The pipeline of novel antibiotics is severely limited and existing therapies are difficult to access, especially in lower- and middle- income countries — which are already bearing a heavier burden of antimicrobial resistant infections.
Anand Anandkumar, co-founder and CEO of Indian pharmaceutical company Bugworks, said he believes the declaration should also set targets for novel innovation, such as committing to develop five new antimicrobials or therapies by 2030.
For the Access to Medicines Foundation, a non-profit, any commitment on innovation should be accompanied by commitments to make products accessible to low- and middle-income countries. “No innovation targets should be there without a target on making these products accessible,” Marijn Verhoef, director of operations and research at the foundation, told POLITICO.
Verhoef said that while the draft includes several “commendable points,” it fails to address the explicit role and responsibility of pharmaceutical companies, nor does it provide clear targets and commitments for the sector.
“The issue is that getting resolutions globally will be problematic as countries have different resource and priority considerations,” Esmita Charani, associate professor at the University of Cape Town, told POLITICO. “However, it’s a move in the right direction that we are having these conversations regarding the threat of AMR at the global policy level.”
Where global leaders land on these topics and targets will be unveiled on Sept. 26 when the declaration is due to be signed.
This much is clear, according to the vice-chair of the Global Leaders Group on AMR, Chris Fearne: “The journey toward the UNGA High-Level Meeting on AMR has been a hectic but exciting one,” he told POLITICO.
“The fact alone that the [high-level meeting] has put AMR firmly on the global agenda is already a win,” said Fearne, Malta’s former health minister. “Of course the wording of the [political declaration] itself is extremely important and has generated a lot of sometimes heated discussion.”
