The UK Government’s Global Antimicrobial Resistance Innovation Fund (GAMRIF), a global innovation fund created to address antimicrobial resistance, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have partnered through CARB-X, a Boston, Massachusetts-based partnership organization focused on early-development antibacterial research and development, to support developing new vaccines, preventatives, and other products against drug-resistant bacterial infections, particularly among vulnerable populations in low- and middle-income countries.

The UK Government is committing up to £20 million ($26.5 million), and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation up to $25 million, to CARB-X over the next three years. Combined with existing funding commitments from Wellcome Trust, a global charitable foundation for improving health, and the US government, CARB-X has more than $500 million to invest in antibacterial development.

Kevin Outterson, Executive Director of CARB-X, says new methods are required in developing antibacterials. “We are in a race against superbugs, and it will take leadership, vision and sustained effort to keep ahead,” Outterson said in a May 22, 2018 statement. “The world urgently needs new approaches to address the rising threat of drug-resistant infections.”

Source: CARB-X