Swiss Round Table on Antibiotics

The Swiss Round Table on Antibiotics commemorated the 2023 World AMR Awareness Week with a special event for its members and guests from its wider ecosystem. The event took place on November 27 in the premises of Debiopharm International in Lausanne and was cordially opened by the president of the company, Mr. Thierry Mauvernay.

About 70 participants from academia, industry, medicine, and the public administration followed the presentations that started with insights in the clinical practice. Further speakers shed light on current challenges, opportunities and solutions along the entire pharmaceutical value chain from early research up to making new antibiotics available to the patients.

Professor Benoît Guery (CHUV) identified certain areas of unmet medical need and pointed to the great difficulty posed to hospital pharmacists in securing patient access to antibiotics that are not regularly available in Switzerland.

Dr. Carlos Quinto (FMH) identified Switzerland’s position in the group of countries with lowest use of antibiotics in the outpatient setting. In this context he praised ANRESIS’ interactive tool designed to guide clinicians in prescribing antibiotics and promote prudent and efficient antibiotic use. Further, he pleaded for reimbursement systems that can secure faster access to antibiotics, as demonstrated in a pilot project conducted in Sweden.

Dr. David Berner (SFL Services) unveiled that very few novel antibiotics sought and got approval in Switzerland over the last years. While there are currently no tailored pathways to approval for antibiotics they may still benefit from new international collaborative procedures and early scientific advice.

Professor Oliver Zerbe (University of Zürich), Dr. Sven Hobbie (Juvabis), and Dr. David Cameron (Debiopharm International) presented promising compounds that are currently in different phases of (pre-)clinical development. The R&D projects demonstrated not only the innovative strength of Swiss SMEs, but also the funding challenges they face. These were discussed by a panel of experts representing CARB-X (Damiano de Felice), INCATE (Douglas Häggström) and the presenters under moderation by Gökhan Batur, an experienced pharma executive and venture partner in XGEN Ventures.

Professor Rudolf Blankart (University of Bern) and Ms. Barbara Polek highlighted the Swiss Round Table on Antibiotics’ (RTA) contribution to improving the market perspectives for new antibiotics in Switzerland: With their Pull project the RTA pursues the implementation of a novel reimbursement system which guarantees a fixed annual income to manufacturers of new antibiotics independent of product volume used.

Dr. med. et lic. iur. Andreas Wildi (Walder Wyss Ltd) confirmed that the current legal framework is able to support such a novel reimbursement system and proposed implementation options.

Dr. Peter Beyer (GARDP) shared insights into Swiss and international initiatives that aim to pave the way for innovative antibacterial treatments addressing particular medical needs of patients in high- and low-and-middle-income countries.

Professor Kevin Outterson (Boston university and CARB-X) underlined the importance of mutual learnings and cooperation across health systems. He also promoted the idea that countries should pay a fair share of a viable global remuneration according to their economic strength to secure patient access to innovative antibiotics.

Acknowledgements

The Swiss Round Table of Antibiotics wishes to express its gratitude to Debiopharm International that hosted the members’ event on its premises. A special word of thanks goes to Ms. Dawn Bonine and Ms. Aswathi Pius for their outstanding organization and logistics support and the team that prepared the most delicious lunch and apero buffets.