Alderley Park joins international fight against antibiotic resistance

The AMR Centre based at Alderley Park is set to join the world’s biggest public-private partnership dedicated to tackling the major health issue – CARB-X.

The AMR Centre is expected to receive $14million in matched funding from CARB-X in year one – and $100million in total over the next five years.

US President Barack Obama gave his support to the CARB-X consortium this week – confirming the US Government would invest $350m in the partnership over five years to fund research into combatting antibiotic resistance.

Cheshire East Council Leader, Rachel Bailey, says the move puts Cheshire East “on the world stage in the fight against superbugs” – and will deliver a boost for the local economy, jobs, skills and the borough’s cutting edge science businesses.

She added: “The threat of anti-microbial resistance is a major global health issue. Cheshire East Council is a key player in the Anti-Microbial Resistance Centre (AMRC) – an internationally important public/private consortium based at Alderley Park dedicated to fighting anti-microbial resistance.

“The news that AMRC has joined the CARB-X consortium is fantastic news for Alderley Park and for Cheshire East. This means more investment in Cheshire East, more jobs and it puts us firmly on the world stage in the fight against superbugs.

“When AstraZeneca announced that they were leaving Alderley Park, Cheshire East Council acted swiftly and decisively to put in place a secure future for the site, co-investing with MSP and securing the Medical Technologies Catapult and Enterprise Zone status.

“AMRC is another world class addition to this and I am proud that we have put in place the right conditions for a flourishing AMR programme with global reach.”

The funding boost to the AMR Centre will be used to help small and medium sized businesses to progress research and development projects into full clinical trials of new antimicrobial drugs and diagnostics.

The AMR Centre is one of five organisations in the partnership which has been set up to tackle the growing resistance of superbugs to antibiotics.

In Europe alone, antibiotic resistance already claims 25,000 lives every year but experts predict this will rise in the future. A recent review for the UK government, led by leading economist Lord O’Neill, concluded that AMR has the potential to be responsible for 10 million extra deaths globally each year by 2050 – more than currently claimed by cancer.

Dr Peter Jackson, steering group chairman of the AMR Centre said: “The creation of CARB-X is one of the most important steps yet in terms of rethinking how we deal with AMR and the partnership will have an impact around the world.

“We share the same goal of accelerating a new pipeline of treatments and diagnostics by working on new drug development programmes. We will do this in our own labs as well as in collaboration with other organisations, in particular providing support to small and medium-sized businesses and research institutes which have exciting new approaches to AMR.”