Kevin Hollinrake MP, ANTRUK CEO comment on Chancellor George Osborne's IMF speech on antibiotic resistance

Chancellor George Osborne will today warn that resistance to antibiotics will become an “even greater threat to mankind than cancer” without global action. His comments will be presented in a speech at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) meeting in Washington today, 14^th April 2016.

Professor Colin Garner, the chief executive of Antibiotic Research UK (ANTRUK), the world’s first charity tackling bacterial antibiotic resistance, says:

It is fantastic that the Chancellor will today highlight in Washington the threat of antibiotic resistance and that this may be larger than the cancer threat.

Effective antibiotics underpin all modern medicine, including cancer treatments, surgery, childbirth and heart operations. We are in danger of going back to a pre-antibiotic era unless we very quickly find significant funds to find new antibiotics, as well as safeguarding our current ones. ANTRUK is working with Kevin Hollinrake, MP for Thirsk and Malton, to ask the government for funds to be given to charities such as ours. Whilst discussions have been going on over the past three years about global initiatives, we have raised sufficient funds to commence our first research project. The time for talking is over and we are looking to the UK Government to take a world leading role. The Chancellor has a fantastic opportunity to make this happen by working with UK stakeholders.

Kevin Hollinrake MP for Thirsk and Malton and with a keen interest in antibiotic resistance and antibiotic drug development says:

The Chancellor’s call today to world governments highlighting the issue of antibiotic resistance is to be welcomed. I am working with charity Antibiotic Research UK to request the UK government to provide UK solutions to the problem of antibiotic resistance by taking a world leading position. I am meeting with the Prime Minister shortly and will be asking him to provide financial assistance to those in the charity sector tacking antibiotic resistance.

To meet the challenge of the rise in antibiotic resistant bacteria (superbugs), national charity Antibiotic Research UK is commissioning the first ever research programme to screen antibiotic resistance breakers against antibiotic resistance in Gram-negative bacteria. This will test whether existing therapies, already in use and being safely administered in humans, can be co-administered with antibiotics. This is the first of five projects to be carried out in the next 5 to 7 years, with the ultimate objective of developing new antibiotic therapies for use by the early 2020’s to overcome superbugs.

ANTRUK has ambitious goals to reverse the decline in antibiotic drug development particularly given the lack of appetite among ‘big pharma’ to find new therapies.