Virtual IFB

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A discussion on the public-private response to drug-resistant infections, and its implications for impact finance

Antibiotic resistance moves silently within populations and knows no boundaries. The Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) is a not-for-profit organization developing new treatments for drug-resistant infections that pose the greatest threat to global health. Established by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) in 2016, GARDP is a core element of WHO’s Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR).   It was created to ensure that everyone who needs antibiotics receives effective and affordable treatment no matter where they live, and aims to develop five new treatments by 2025 to fight drug-resistant infections, focusing on sexually transmitted infections, sepsis in newborns and infections in hospitalized adults and children. GARDP is funded by the governments of Germany, Japan, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, South Africa, Switzerland, United Kingdom, as well as private foundations.

In this session, GARDP’s Executive Director Dr. Manica Balasegaram will outline the impact of AMR, its economic impact, and GARDP’s response to this emerging pandemic. Dr. Balasegaram is joined by Nathalie Khavessian, GARDP’s Clinical Trial Manager, who will present the Neonatal Sepsis Study, a groundbreaking project focused on babies – a population that is extremely vulnerable to antibiotic resistance.

The session will also benefit from the insights of two visionary entrepreneurs: Dr. Anand Anandkumar, CEO and Managing Director of Bugworks Research, a startup that aims to discover novel treatment options for resistant bacterial infections, and a member of GARDP’s India Advisory Board.  This will be followed by Artha Impact investees Dr Bala Pesala & Geethanjali Radhakrishnan, CEO and founder of Adiuvo Diagnostics, an early stage biotechnology company aimed at developing state-of-the-art platform technologies in optoelectronics to effectively support early disease detection and advanced healthcare diagnostics in low-resource settings.

Main speakers:

• Dr. Manica Balasegaram, Executive Director, GARDP
• Nathalie Khavessian, Clinical Trial Manager, GARDP

Additional presenters:

• Dr. Anand Anandkumar, CEO/MD, Bugworks Research
• Dr. Bala Pesala and Geethanjali Radhakrishnan, Founders, Adiuvo Diagnostics

Please click on the link to register for this IFB session: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0kceGrrzgrGtffOlbh_Jt5D7enyaBZZ7o

We look forward to seeing you online!