Antimicrobial resistances in the spotlight
Berlin, 21.03.2019 – More than 330 international experts came to Berlin on March 14 and 15 for the twelfth Berlin Conference on Life Sciences to discuss the most urgent challenges in the fight against antibiotic resistance.
The two-day conference entitled “Novel Antimicrobials and AMR Diagnostics 2019” was organised by BIOCOM with the support of the European BEAM Alliance. The event attracted above all numerous small and medium-sized innovative enterprises (SMEs) to Berlin. While many large pharmaceutical companies have left the field, hundreds of SMEs are working on new therapy and diagnostic solutions to combat multi-resistant pathogens.
“The AMR conference has established itself as a professional platform for joint discussion and networking for AMR stakeholders from all over the world,” says Sandra Wirsching, responsible for the AMR conference programme at BIOCOM. Representatives of the international AMR Accelerator CARB-X, the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), GARDP, DZIF, the European networks JPIAMR and ENABLE, the Global AMR R&D Hub, of the new International AMR Centre ICARS, major pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies, biotech companies and private investors presented updates, new initiatives and promising approaches to support AMR innovations in development, financing and market introduction.
For the first time this year, the conference offered investor partnering to bring together AMR-oriented therapeutics and diagnostics developers with relevant public and private financiers. “Investor partnering represents a major step forward,” commented Sandra Wirsching. “The participants in the 200 or so meetings rated the project very positively.
Representatives of the industry praised the event and emphasised that it contributes to achieving the urgently needed public attention for antimicrobial resistance.