Dear All: An important and instructive analysis of optimal global antibiotic usage targets has just been published in Lancet Public Health. To follow the plot, here are the links you need: The new paper: Cook et al.: “Benchmarking AWaRe: estimating optimal levels of AWaRe antibiotic use in 186 countries, territories and areas based on clinical
Dear All (and with thanks to Aaron Dane for co-authoring this newsletter AND inhale, exhale … this is going to be a long, wonkish, but VERY important note! Get coffee! Get to a calm place! Clear your head! Read on!), Provoked by a recent paper on the idea of DTR (Difficult-to-Treat Resistance) by Walker et al.
Dear All: WHO have announced a very interesting 2-h virtual dialogue on optimal evidence generation across the antibiotic R&D lifecycle! Here are the details you need: When: 31 Aug 2026 (virtual, 2-4p CET): What: A dialogue on challenges such as fragmented regulatory requirements, trade-offs in clinical trial design, and gaps between evidence generated for regulatory
Dear All: Two important webinars have just been announced! 22 July (virtual, 2-3.30p CET): The WHO AMR Department and the WHO GAP-r (Global Accelerator for Pediatric Formulations) are hosting an industry dialogue on pediatric and neonatal antibiotic development: The discussion will cover timing of pediatric and neonatal studies, extrapolation from adult data, feasibility of trial
Dear All: Both FDA and EMA have very recently released important documents for comment. See below the links and commentary on the two documents. == FDA: The Substantial Evidence guidance, further updated: Comments due 22 Sep 2026 ==FDA have released a further revision of their Dec 2019 draft guidance entitled “Demonstrating Substantial Evidence of Effectiveness
Dear All (wonkish but stick with it … I’m going to try very hard to de-wonk it; addendum: see also the follow-up newsletters, most recently on 22 Dec 2025), In an absolutely terrifying paper and technical report in today’s issue of Science, we are introduced in detail to the concept of “mirror” bacteria in which
Dear All, Regular readers will be aware of the global conversation now happening around the threat arising from the potential to create viable organisms that are (at a molecular level) the mirror images of existing organisms. If this is new to you (or, if you’d like a refresh), here are the links you need: 18
This newsletter is part of a series — here are the links to Part 1, Part 2, (this one is Part 3), Part 4, and Part 5. You might also enjoy the discussion of AI-supported discovery in this May 2026 video from Nature. Dear All, As a coda to the two newsletters on Chemicals, Drugs, and Halicin (link and
Dear All, 3 June 2026 update: NIAID has funded a 3-center coordinated network under this RFA! See the parallel announcements from the Gladstone Institutes (Center for PhAIge Therapy), Stanford University (Center for Phage Pharmaceuticals), and the University of Pittsburgh (Center for Accelerating Phage Therapy). I was delighted to learn today that NIAID https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2026/06/bollyky-niaid-grant.htmlhas released RFA-AI-24-069, a
Note: For those of you with an interest in developing bacterial vaccines, the results of Pfizer’s failed STRIVE S. aureus vaccine have now appeared in print along with an excellent editorial commentary. Deep sigh on this one — please see the updated prior newsletter for the links and the full story. This newsletter is part