Preparing for the Silently Growing Pandemic of Antimicrobial Resistance: Innovative Economic Incentives to Fix the Broken Market

This project aims to establish a regulatory framework in Switzerland to stimulate the development of new antibiotics, ensuring access to effective and affordable antimicrobial therapies. This should increase system preparedness for health disasters, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, the lack of effective antimicrobial treatments was and still is a major challenge, as patients who survived COVID-19 often died later of drug-resistant bacterial superinfections that were acquired in the hospital. The grant will support follow-up of a parliamentary event in Bern, Switzerland, providing policy-related information to parliamentarians and other stakeholders; organizing additional events to encourage debate relevant to policymaking; and encouraging exchange of best practices on pull-mechanisms and research and development incentives. In addition, the project expects to set-up an antibiotics communication and blog platform and establish a regular newsletter for Swiss stakeholders.