Evotec, GARDP partner to tackle antimicrobial resistance threat

The public-private partnership between Evotec and GARDP will strive to address the increasing threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

It will combine GARDP’s clinical expertise and Evotec’s drug discovery platform, medicinal chemistry and pharmacology expertise and its portfolio of bacterial pathogens.

The partnership will focus on fast tracking the development of antibiotic treatments for hard-to-treat bacterial infections by creating a platform that will cover the length of the drug development value chain.

The two organizations will also work on developing a joint pipeline and also claim to see that the discovered antibiotics are priced sensibly and are globally available to all patients who require them.

GARDP research and development director Seamus O’Brien said: “Partnerships are central to GARDP’s model. Working with Evotec will undoubtedly strengthen GARDP’s efforts to develop new antibiotics, while addressing the need for their sustainable access.

“Evotec’s expertise complements GARDP’s approach, which allows both partners to develop a drug from early exploratory to pre-clinical and clinical studies all the way to patients.”

According to Evotec, due to few antibiotics being developed, AMR is a major and fast growing health challenge across the world. Owing to AMR, infections that were previously easy to treat are now becoming harder to treat, said the German biotech company.

Evotec chief scientific officer Cord Dohrmann said: “The development of resistance to antimicrobials is likely to accelerate and the need for new antibiotics is beyond urgent. Unfortunately, the number of companies engaged in antimicrobial drug discovery is continuously decreasing due to scientific and commercial challenges.

“Evotec and GARDP are committed to explore new models to leverage cutting-edge discovery platforms to highly innovative and promising projects that have the potential to yield novel classes of antibiotics directed against high priority pathogens.”

Last month, the German biotech company entered into a collaboration with the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research to develop antibiotics that overcome drug-resistant bacterial pathogens.

Initially, the partners will focus on cystobactamids, a family of natural antibacterial products that are known to work against dangerous Gram-negative pathogens.