WHS event – Breaking Boundaries: The Promise of Innovation in AMR

Oct. 14, 2024, CEST: 09:00 AM - 10:30 AM / UTC: 07:00 AM - 08:30 AM

Workshop (WS 10) - South America

Antibiotics play a crucial role in modern medicine and without them many treatments and procedures (for example in cancer care, organ transplantation and childbirth) carry a significantly higher risk of complication or failure. However, the increasing resistance of bacterial pathogens to antibiotics - Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) - undermines the efficacy of these treatments and jeopardizes the benefits of modern healthcare, posing grave risks to vulnerable patient groups.

The world urgently needs Research & Development (R&D) to develop novel and innovative antibiotics that would not only safeguard the advance of medicine, but further provide value by decreasing the selection pressure on established antibiotics.

We stand at a pivotal moment to address the pressing health, economic, and societal issues of AMR. Public and private partners are facing the triple challenge of AMR: fostering innovation and viable markets for new, life-saving treatments and diagnostics, ensuring equitable access to safe and effective antibiotics, and the need for stewardship in use. Investment in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education will be critical to build the AMR R&D workforce for the future.

Acknowledging that innovation is essential to addressing AMR, and drawing on the anticipated discussions related to the Political Declaration on AMR this session aims to explore real-world solutions in policy, funding and cross-sector collaboration to accelerate the discovery and global supply of groundbreaking antibiotics.