Plus the U.K.’s subscription-based payment pilot for antibiotics and WTO’s COVID IP deal
By Jeff Cranmer, Executive Editor
June 21, 2022 12:57 AM UTC
BioCentury
There’s a big difference between how politicians such as President Joe Biden and Rep. Anna Eshoo (D.-Calif) describe the mandate of Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health and how those working to stand the new agency up see it, said Washington Editor Steve Usdin on the latest BioCentury This Week podcast.
Usdin details how the new agency is taking shape as it seeks to deliver transformative science and the latest moves by Eshoo to try to change the structure of the agency via legislation.
“I think that what ARPA-H is going to do is really going to be quite different from NIH,” said Usdin. “I think it’s really about seeing what kind of really positive changes they can make in the kind of time frames that they’re talking about, which is three to six years, and also doing something that the private sector already isn’t doing.”
The podcast team also explores the NHS’s deal with Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) and Shionogi & Co. Ltd. (Tokyo:4507) on a subscription-based payment pilot for antibiotics that could serve as an example for other payers considering similar initiatives.
Editor in Chief Simone Fishburn places the project in context of other programs seeking to tackle the antibiotics crisis.
“It is actually an emergency that is already here,” said Fishburn. She pointed to a 2020 BioCentury commentary, “The AMR crisis is solvable — but we must act together and fast,” by Lars Rebien Sørensen, the chairman of The Novo Nordisk Foundation and Novo Holdings A/S, on the topic as particularly relevant.
Fishburn, Usdin and Executive Editor Jeff Cranmer also discuss why an IP agreement by the WTO will do little to move the needle on COVID countermeasures and top takeaways from Samantha Du’s appearance on The BioCentury Show. Du is founder, chairperson and CEO of Zai Lab Ltd. (NASDAQ:ZLAB; HKEX:9688).
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