CARB-X funds 100th project—a milestone for BU-based nonprofit leading antimicrobial-resistance fightback

Every year, millions of people around the world die from infections linked to bacteria that don’t respond to any drug treatments. And the problem is getting worse, fueled in part by the COVID-19 pandemic: more pathogens are finding ways to sneak around our current antibiotics.

But the fightback is on, and being led by a Boston University–based nonprofit partnership that’s spent the past eight years accelerating the development of new antimicrobials. CARB-X directs funding and expertise to companies and researchers around the world to spur innovative antibiotics, vaccines, and rapid diagnostics. And it just funded its 100th project, a promising effort to optimize new molecules that might be able to stop potentially deadly bacteria in their tracks.

Since its 2016 launch, CARB-X (Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator) has given out $452.6 million in funding awards, helping push 18 projects into first-in-human clinical trials and a further 12 into clinical development. Many are happening in university labs or at small start-ups; CARB-X has supported developers in a dozen countries.

“We didn’t know it in 2016, but CARB-X has become one of the key global initiatives to save the future of antibiotics,” says Kevin Outterson, CARB-X’s executive director and Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Law at BU School of Law. “Through funding and an innovative support model for small and dedicated drug discovery teams, CARB-X has taken a leadership role in replenishing the early pipeline of potential new antibiotics, preventatives, and diagnostics for bacterial infections at a critical time when large pharmaceutical researchers and private investors have focused their energies elsewhere.

“If CARB-X had not been around, we would have seen less innovation, fewer R&D projects progressing toward patients, and a lower survival rate of dedicated research teams.”

CARB-X has also driven two diagnostic products to market, including a superbug detector developed by Lexington, Mass.–based T2 Biosystems. That device speeds up blood screening, giving doctors a crucial head start on spotting antibiotic-resistant organisms and building a treatment plan.

“Both products seek to reduce the time between when a patient presents with sepsis symptoms and when a proper antibiotic is administered,” says Erin Duffy, CARB-X’s chief of research and development. “This is important, because the likelihood of death increases by nearly 10 percent for every hour in that time gap.”

CARB-X is funded by a consortium of governments and foundations that includes the US, German, UK, and Canadian governments, the global charitable trust Wellcome, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Novo Nordisk Foundation. It also receives in-kind services from the National Institutes of Health.

The 100th project to win funding is led by Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) in Saarbrücken, Germany. The institute is developing compounds that show early promise against pathogens that cause a type of lower respiratory tract infection known as community-acquired bacterial pneumonia.

“With this 100th project, we are doubling down on our support of novel approaches to deliver antibiotics that clinicians and patients need,” says Duffy. “If successful, the HIPS project will offer a workhorse antibiotic for community-acquired infections that will also take the pressure off antibiotics in the [World Health Organization] model list of essential medicines.”

According to Duffy, CARB-X will continue to focus on the bacteria and infections that “drive the greatest burden of disease” and products that have the potential to save millions of lives. The nonprofit partnership just announced a new global funding round and is calling for project proposals in four areas: therapeutics for infections caused by gram-negative pathogens, novel approaches to the prevention of invasive disease, diagnostics for neonatal sepsis, and diagnostics for diagnosing lower respiratory tract infections.

“Bacteria kill 7.7 million people a year. A growing percentage of those people die from a drug-resistant bacterial infection, already killing more people each year than HIV/AIDS and malaria combined,” says Outterson. “Evolution pushes bacteria to resist antibiotics, so this problem only gets worse unless we use our brains and pocketbooks. We can never take our foot off the gas of discovery and development of new products to prevent, diagnose, and treat bacterial infections.”

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