The Global Coalition on Aging (GCOA) last week issued a report calling on G7 countries to commit to funding pull incentives and making other investments in antibiotic innovation.

The report, which summarizes a GCOA-convened April meeting that included experts and government officials from Japan, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Italy, and the European Union, asserts that the lack of new antibiotics and rising resistance to current antibiotics is having a severe impact on those most at risk of infection and that the current antibiotic pipeline is inadequate and must be prioritized.

Therefore, the experts concluded, incentive structures to develop new antibiotics, such as the subscription-based model adopted in the United Kingdom, must be supported, and other countries in the G7 must “rise to the challenge” and complement the UK model with their own incentives. To date, the United Kingdom is the only country to follow up on pledges to incentivize new antibiotic research and development made at the 2022 G7 meeting.

Call for ‘fair share’ contributions

Noting that the current healthcare burden of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is estimated at $1 trillion globally, the experts agreed that if all G7 countries contributed their “fair share” to a $4.5 billion pull incentive to fund a single new antibiotic, the return on investment would be 5:1.

The report urged G7 countries to use the opportunity presented by the upcoming United Nations High-Level Meeting on AMR and demonstrate their commitment to solving the problem.

“There will never be more political momentum on AMR than this year,” the report states. “All countries must take this opportunity to address AMR through collaborative multi-stakeholder action and commitments to invest a fair share in our most vital healthcare infrastructure.”