A Conversation with Dr. Beverley Isherwood

On this interview ahead of World AMR Awareness Week, we explore the upcoming challenge of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) with Dr. Beverley Isherwood, Strategy Leader for Infectious Diseases at Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC) and Programme Director for Pathways to Antimicrobial Clinical Efficacy (PACE).

Dr. Isherwood, together with her extensive background in medicine discovery and strategy, shares her insights on the progressive approaches to combat AMR and the importance of collaborative efforts on this fight. Find out about key initiatives being led from the UK which can be propelling latest treatments forward and Dr Isherwood’s vision for a future where AMR is not any longer a looming global health threat.

Please introduce yourself, briefly outline your profession, and tell us what inspired you to pursue a profession in drug discovery and infectious diseases, particularly within the context of antimicrobial resistance?

I’m Dr Beverley Isherwood, Strategy Leader for Infectious Diseases at Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC) and Programme Director for PACE.

At MDC, I even have responsibility for providing strategic and scientific leadership of MDC’s infectious diseases portfolio. We’re focused on helping to rework great science into higher treatments through partnership. I even have the privilege of working alongside our collaborators to deliver quite a few initiatives geared toward tackling AMR, including PACE and the CF AMR Syndicate. As Programme Director for PACE, I oversee its strategic direction, deployment and operational translation.

I even have worked in medicines discovery for over 20 years and held various roles within the biopharmaceutical industry before joining MDC in June 2020. I even have at all times been inspired by learning from experts from different sectors to drive research efforts focused on helping people live healthier lives.

Antimicrobial resistance is a big and growing issue that needs our urgent attention. I’m grateful to be a part of the good community of people who find themselves working together to bring forward latest innovations and inventive ways of tackling this global health threat.

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Are you able to help our audience understand the worldwide implications of antimicrobial resistance by way of public health and economics and why it’s sometimes called a “timebomb”?

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one in all the top 10 global public health threats and an urgent global challenge. It has been estimated that 1.27 million deaths worldwide were attributable to infections attributable to bacterial AMR in 2019. This number is estimated to rise to 10 million people yearly by 2050 and will cost the world >$50 trillion if no motion is taken. 

AMR is complex. Bacteria and other microbes are evolving to grow to be proof against treatment, driven largely by our overuse and misuse of antibiotics. There should not enough current medicines or medicines in development to remain ahead of those resistant infections.

Half of the antibiotics prescribed today were discovered within the Nineteen Fifties, with only a handful of latest antibiotic classes discovered for the reason that Eighties. There’s an urgent have to grow a pipeline of latest antimicrobial medicines and diagnostics.

World AMR Awareness Week has the theme “stopping antimicrobial resistance together.” Could you tell us why this theme is especially necessary in 2023?

Antimicrobial resistance is a really global challenge that needs a worldwide response. It affects people in every country, and without intervention, it is going to grow to be an ever-increasing issue.

The emergence and spread of drug-resistant pathogens with latest resistance mechanisms proceed to threaten our ability to treat common infections, and increasing numbers of individuals with multidrug-resistant infections are running out of treatment options. 

Without effective antimicrobials and higher diagnostics, the success of contemporary medicine in treating infections, including during general surgery and cancer chemotherapy, amongst others, can be at increased risk. The one method to find solutions to this growing challenge is to work together.

As a PACE Programme Director and Medicine Discovery Catapult’s Strategy Leader in Infectious Diseases, firstly, what’s PACE? And the way does PACE aim to deal with the challenges of antimicrobial resistance, and what’s its role within the fight against AMR?

PACE (Pathways to Antimicrobial Clinical Efficacy) is a £30 million initiative supporting early-stage innovation in medicines and diagnostics to tackle AMR and save lives.

It’s a collaboration between Innovate UK, LifeArc, and Medicines Discovery Catapult – three leaders within the UK’s health innovation and research community with unique expertise that shall be harnessed by catalysing and dealing with the worldwide AMR community to speed up the speed of innovation to mitigate the chance of AMR.

PACE will bring together the appropriate funding, resources, and partnerships to assist innovators progress their early-stage antimicrobial drug and diagnostics projects with greater speed, support and confidence – giving the most effective AMR innovations the best likelihood of success.

Because the UK’s largest public-private initiative targeting early-stage antimicrobial drug and diagnostic discovery, PACE will select, put money into and support projects that address the world’s most threatening pathogens. It should deliver innovations for onward development and investment, moving them closer to clinical trials and, critically, contributing to higher patient outcomes.

By tackling this problem collectively, with a pandemic-style focus, the early translational science community shall be supported to deliver the breakthroughs needed.

PACE is a groundbreaking £30 million initiative to deal with global threats posed by AMR. Could you provide a deeper insight into the collaboration between Innovate UK, LifeArc, and Medicines Discovery Catapult and the unique expertise each partner brings to the initiative?

LifeArc, Innovate UK and Medicines Discovery Catapult all imagine there’s an urgent have to grow a pipeline of high-quality precision antimicrobial drugs and associated diagnostics if we’re going to deal with AMR and protect the lives of individuals worldwide. Innovate UK and LifeArc have each invested £15 million into PACE and can collaborate with Medicines Discovery Catapult to deliver the initiative.

LifeArc is a self-funded, not-for-profit medical research organisation focused on translational science. It carries out its own research and provides funding and expert advice to others, all with the aim of improving patient lives. One among its areas of focus is global health, where it’s collaborating to speed up innovation in infectious diseases.

This includes its translational challenge in AMR, which goals to drive the higher use of existing treatments and the event of latest targeted therapies and diagnostics for AMR. PACE is a crucial a part of this work.

Innovate UK, the national innovation agency, drives transformational change in health innovation to enable people to live longer, healthy lives and realise the UK’s position as a world leader in life sciences. It empowers early-stage, high-growth potential businesses from across the UK by granting them access to partners, facilities, funding, and useful advice.

This support will enable these businesses to grow and effectively confront the numerous challenge that AMR poses. Innovate UK will play a number one role in constructing an innovation ecosystem around AMR that accelerates latest discoveries and promotes economic growth for UK businesses.

Medicines Discovery Catapult is an independent, not-for-profit, national innovation centre reshaping drug discovery for patient profit by transforming great UK science into higher treatments through partnership.

Through PACE, MDC will bring the AMR community together and make it easier for innovators to show their ideas into novel therapeutics and diagnostics. MDC offers its world-class capabilities so, together, we are able to speed up the pace of antimicrobial innovation and save lives.

We will achieve more together. With our mix of experience and resources, we are able to make a much bigger impact than we might make alone. 

PACE is targeted on accelerating early-stage innovation against AMR. What specific projects and areas of research will it support, and what are the factors for choosing and investing in these projects?

PACE goals to supply funding and support for high-value, high-risk, early-phase drug discovery and diagnostic projects. Through a series of funding calls, we want to help create and advance an exciting and diverse pipeline of preclinical phase projects geared toward diagnosing and treating bacterial infections with high unmet need. PACE might also fund research that may directly support the advancement of this portfolio where it is required.  

Our first funding call is targeted on identifying after which supporting a portfolio of early-stage novel antibacterial therapeutics. We’re searching for projects directed on the highest-burden drug-resistant bacterial infections and indications, as highlighted by the recent Lancet study and the WHO priority list. In-scope indications are lower respiratory tract infections, bloodstream infections, intra-abdominal infections, and urinary tract infections.

Projects must be directed at a number of of the world’s most virulent and antibiotic-resistant pathogens – specifically the Gram-negative ESKAPEE pathogens: K.pneumoniae, A.baumannii, P.aeruginosa, Enterobacteriaceae, E.coli and/or be an oral therapeutic applicable to the Gram-positive ESKAPEE pathogen; drug-resistant S.aureus.

Projects must be transformational, with the aim to fill a niche for progressive and differentiated antimicrobials within the clinical pipeline.

We encourage projects based on the concept of precision medicine where consideration is given to potential patient stratification and diagnostics requirements. Our criteria are aligned with those of potential follow-on funders and the NICE subscription model criteria, paving a route from the bench to patient impact. 

This primary PACE funding call is open now. As much as 12 applicants shall be awarded a maximum of £1 million each in grant funding, with projects expected to last as long as two years. AMR innovators worldwide are eligible to use. Expressions of interest are invited by the twenty fourth November and more information is on the market on our website.

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The recent press release mentioned that PACE will apply learning from other disease areas, akin to cancer and COVID-19. How will these insights be applied to tackle the complex issue of AMR, and what lessons might be shared?

PACE is taking a mission-based approach, as successfully demonstrated throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, to speed up the event of latest antimicrobials and diagnostics to tackle deadly antimicrobial resistance. By bringing the community together around this urgent unmet patient need and providing researchers with the rounded support they need to present their innovations the most effective likelihood of succeeding, PACE will help to tackle the growing global threat of AMR.

Latest approaches are needed to combat AMR. We now have seen that novel treatment approaches in cancer have resulted in lots of more tailored tests and coverings to assist ensure patients get the appropriate treatment at the appropriate time. We’re moving to an era when antimicrobials may also be more selective and potentially targeted to particular pathogens, which implies diagnostic tools also play an increasingly necessary role.

PACE will work to drive this approach to innovation in AMR by supporting a various range of funded projects with essentially the most transformational potential – from targeted treatments to rapid diagnostics and other progressive developments being driven by the community.   

How will PACE provide support for a various range of funded projects, from targeted treatments to rapid diagnostics, and what progressive developments can we expect from the AMR community in consequence?

Non-traditional and highly novel approaches are increasingly represented within the very early discovery and preclinical pipeline for each medicines and diagnostics. PACE may be very much trying to embrace and support these latest approaches.

PACE is just not nearly funding; we aim to supply a collaborative approach to project development and delivery. We are going to guide and support PACE awardees to align their AMR asset with the appropriate progression pathway and translational roadmap.

We are going to ensure supporting data packages are appropriately targeted and strengthened and, where obligatory, help innovators to work closely with regulators and wider stakeholders to define appropriate goal product profiles. PACE awardees may also profit from a network of potential project partners, advisors and mentors to assist them develop their AMR assets at pace. We are going to facilitate collaboration and empower our innovators to develop their early-stage ideas for onward progression and investment.

Ultimately, PACE goals to strengthen the pipeline by bringing forward a brand new wave of scientifically diverse, progressive approaches with the potential to deal with the needs and priorities of funders, investors, clinical care teams and other people affected by AMR. This may provide the chance for us to get ahead of AMR.

What role do you see PACE playing in strengthening the UK’s position as a worldwide leader in life sciences and contributing to higher patient outcomes within the fight against AMR?

The UK has an extended history of innovation on this area for the reason that discovery of penicillin by Sir Alexander Fleming in 1928. The UK was one in all the primary countries to ascertain a National Motion Plan (NAP) on AMR with a method in place as early as 2000.

The UK funds quite a few research initiatives geared toward improving global knowledge and understanding of AMR. In the present 2019-2024 National Motion Plan, the UK has led the way in which in a world-first pilot to incentivise the event of latest antimicrobials and alternative treatments.

LifeArc, Innovate UK and Medicines Discovery Catapult have come together to assist address the challenge of AMR by providing an extra injection of funding and support for early-stage translation and the chance for the community to work together in a brand new method to deliver antimicrobial medicines and diagnostics.

We hope that this effort will address a key gap within the funding and support landscape, strengthening the general international ‘push funding’ (funding geared toward encouraging research and development) opportunities for AMR.

Progress through PACE will mean our science community shall be higher supported, and the UK can contribute towards a more robust pipeline of tests and coverings, cementing its place as a worldwide leader in life sciences and ultimately contributing to higher patient outcomes. 

Are there any additional resources or initiatives you’d recommend for individuals who need to learn more or become involved in addressing antimicrobial resistance?

The World Health Organisation has helpful details about AMR on its website, including fact sheets and updates on global motion plans. It also collates relevant publications and news stories related to AMR. AMR Insights, a global network-based organisation, hosts an information platform on AMR, in addition to a series of matchmaking and networking events for those working in the sphere.

The PACE website shall be updated with relevant reports and research papers being published in order that researchers working on this space can profit from other people’s breakthroughs. We also list up-and-coming events to assist researchers connect with the community, study AMR programmes, and construct on industry best practice.

As we glance toward the longer term and consider this yr’s World AMR Awareness Week theme of “stopping antimicrobial resistance together”, what are your hopes and aspirations for the worldwide efforts to combat AMR, and the way can individuals and organizations contribute to this cause?

Significant efforts are being made by many globally – from charities bringing the patient voice to the fore to trade bodies and governments shaping policy and regulation, alongside clinicians and academics driving forward research.

There are also quite a few highly impactful programmes delivering a wide range of funding initiatives that are geared toward addressing the market failure in AMR. PACE shall be trying to work in partnership with all these groups to assist be certain that the medicines and diagnostics which can be most needed reach patients in essentially the most efficient way possible.

The World AMR Awareness Week theme of ‘Stopping AMR Together’ may be very relevant to this cause – we’re at all times keen to attach with people to explore how we are able to progress efforts together. For organisations, this yr’s theme highlights the concentrate on harmonization and connection across schemes and activities in order that we are able to get ahead of AMR together.

Where can readers find more information?

About Dr. Beverley Isherwood

Dr Beverley Isherwood is Strategy Leader – Infectious Diseases at Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC) and Programme Director for PACE. Dr Isherwood is liable for providing strategic and scientific leadership across MDC’s infectious diseases portfolio, including PACE and the CF AMR Syndicate. As a Programme Director for PACE, Dr Isherwood oversees its strategic direction, deployment and operational translation.

Dr Isherwood has 20 years of experience in medicines discovery through previous roles within the biopharmaceutical industry, working on the interface with private, public and charity partners to advance R&D for patient impact. She has extensive experience developing and delivering large mission-focused multistakeholder collaborations.

Dr. Isherwood is an Associate Editor for SLAS Discovery and holds an MA (Natural Sciences) from Cambridge University and a PhD in Molecular Virology from the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research. She can be a member of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals with CA-AM accreditation.