Webinar Recording
Live Webinar for our Plenary Session:
Investing in Global Health Security: Overcoming Challenges in Antibiotic Development
COVID-19 is a powerful reminder that emerging pathogens continue to pose a serious threat to global health, causing socio-economic havoc when we fail to prepare and to invest in research and development. As the life sciences industry now rallies together to develop the vaccines, diagnostics and treatments against this new strain of coronavirus, there is another hidden pandemic: antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Currently resistant infections kill 700,000 globally each year, and if left unchecked, by 2050 10 million people per year will lose their life to resistant infections. Many lifesaving medical procedures or therapies will become impossible to carry out without access to efficacious antibiotics.
Critical to tackling AMR is responsible use of antibiotics and a robust pipeline of new medicines that can keep pace with ever-increasing rates of resistance. Restrictive responsible use guidelines make the market incentives for developing and distributing new antibiotics very challenging. These market model challenges and drug development difficulties for antibiotic medicines has led to a deteriorating pipeline precisely when we need it most.
This panel will highlight research and collaborations to develop new tools to tackle AMR and provide an update on efforts to facilitate development and uptake of innovation. While these tools may be years from approval, policy engagement to address identified barriers must begin now.
Moderator: Gregory Frank, PhD, Senior Director, Infectious Disease Policy, BIO
Speakers:
- Pierre Daram, Global Project Leader, Associate Director Portfolio Management, Debiopharm
- Silas Holland, Head of External Affairs (Interim), AMR Action Fund
- Jeremy Knox, Policy and Advocacy Lead, Drug Resistant Infections Programme, Wellcome Trust
- Karolina Puskarczyk, Senior Manager, Innovation Policy, Pfizer
Moderator
Speakers
Speaker and Moderator Bios
Silas Holland
Head of External Affairs (Interim), AMR Action Fund
Silas Holland, interim Head of External Affairs, is a Director for Global Public Policy at MSD, he is responsible for global health policy issues related to infectious disease.
Over the past 15 years, he has worked on programs at both the community- and global-level to expand access to medicines. He joined MSD in 2016 from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, where he was responsible for the sourcing of tuberculosis health products. He has also worked for the World Health Organization and Stop TB Partnership in Geneva.
He earned a BA in Biology from Duke University and has postgraduate degrees in education (Loyola Marymount University) and public health (University of Pretoria).
Jeremy Knox
Policy and Advocacy Lead, Drug Resistant Infections Programme, Wellcome Trust
Jeremy Knox leads the Wellcome Trust’s expanding policy and advocacy programme on antimicrobial resistance, as a key part of the organisation’s multi-year, £220m+ commitment to support the global response to drug-resistant infections through integrated research and policy activities. This includes a particular focus on policy work to support the mobilisation of national- and global-level action on drug-resistant infections, as well as work to address key failings in the antibiotic R&D ecosystem.
He joined Wellcome in July 2017 after eight years working in government at the UK Department for Health. During this time, Jeremy worked in public and global health roles, including a two year secondment from 2014 to 2016 to be deputy head of the small team working on Lord Jim O’Neill’s Review on Antimicrobial Resistance.
Having originally studied economics at the University of Nottingham, Jeremy also holds a master’s degree in Health Policy from Imperial College, London.
Karolina Puskarczyk
Senior Manager, Innovation Policy, Pfizer
Karolina Puskarczyk, Senior Manager, Innovation Policy leads antimicrobial resistance and vaccine policy development in support of Pfizer’s R&D-driven business model. Karolina also focuses on industrial policy issues to ensure strong R&D ecosystems exist globally. Karolina represents Pfizer on several biopharma working groups, including the BIO Biodefense Work Group, the BIO COVID-19 Vaccine & Therapeutics Taskforces, and the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA) Vaccines/AMR Work Group.
Prior to joining Pfizer, Karolina was a Senior Consultant with Insight Strategy Advisors, a firm which specializes in market access and commercialization strategy. During her tenure, Karolina worked with over 10 pharmaceutical and biotech clients on more than 25 projects across a variety of therapeutic areas, including vaccines, rare diseases, CNS, pain, oncology, respiratory, NASH, and inflammation & immunology.
Karolina received her Master of Public Health degree in Health Policy & Management from Columbia University and her Bachelor of Arts degree from Duke University.
Gregory Frank
PhD, Senior Director, Infectious Disease Policy, Biotechnology Innovation Organization
Gregory Frank is the Senior Director of Infectious Disease Policy at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, where he leads several infectious diseases policy issues, including antimicrobial resistance and vaccine policy. BIO is a trade organization and lobbying group that represents the interests of the biotechnology industry. Biotechnology is technology based on biology used most often to create medicines and cure diseases, to create fuels and help produce food products.
Dr. Frank received his doctorate in immunology at the University of Pittsburgh and pursued his postdoctoral training at the Laboratory of Viral Diseases at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He has published multiple scientific articles in the field of infectious disease.
