[Geneva/Tokyo - 12 March 2020] The Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) has today announced an agreement with Daiichi Sankyo for GARDP to access and screen the Daiichi Sankyo chemical library. The library will be tested by Institut Pasteur Korea with the goal of discovering novel antibacterial compounds. The agreement sees Daiichi Sankyo join Eisai and Takeda as part of an AMR Screening Consortium, which aims to accelerate GARDP efforts to identify compounds for development into treatments for drug-resistant infections.
Antimicrobial resistance is a major and rapidly growing public health concern and has been identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as among the greatest threats to global health. Each year 700,000 people die due to drug-resistant infections. Without urgent action to develop new antimicrobial treatments, this number is projected to increase exponentially.
GARDP will test compounds from the Daiichi Sankyo chemical library, which have never been screened for antibacterial activity, against drug-resistant bacteria identified as a critical priority on the WHO priority pathogens list. Through the screening, GARDP hopes to identify novel compounds for further optimization and development.
"GARDP's partnership with Daiichi Sankyo gives GARDP the opportunity to screen a proprietary library that otherwise would not be tested for antibacterial activity," said Laura Piddock, GARDP Director of Scientific Affairs. "The AMR Screening Consortium is a wonderful opportunity to discover novel compounds to potentially develop into life-saving treatments for drug-resistant infections."