Antimicrobial Resistance

Lord Colwyn Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Colwyn (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on securing this debate on the risks of antimicrobial resistance, or AMR. Although it is last on the list of the short debates this afternoon, this debate follows quite nicely on from the debate we had on 22 November last year when we discussed the same sort of problems. The standard of wound care was the main subject then.

The global threat of AMR, in both human and economic cost, has been well documented. I will not repeat the statistics of the grave consequences that are predicted if we do not act. I shall have to read what the noble Baroness said. It sounded terribly complex, but I will catch up with it tomorrow.

As noble Lords will know from past debates, I have been a champion of research and development to create new treatments so that we can get ahead of the superbugs. I have been greatly impressed by the work of Matoke Holdings. This small British biotech firm has pioneered reactive oxygen technology, a novel antimicrobial, initially as a treatment for serious infected wounds. This could be ground-breaking in tackling antimicrobial resistance. I do not have any financial interest to declare, but I have an interest in that my younger brother recently lost a leg from MRSA and the remaining leg was successfully treated with reactive oxygen technology. Professor Davies has warned in the past of apocalyptic consequences if antibiotics stop working. Overuse of antibiotics is speeding up the rate at which bacteria evolve, making common infections much more difficult to treat. With a lack of significant investment in antimicrobial R&D from big pharma companies, it falls to small and medium-sized enterprises, such as Matoke, to put in the leg work to develop new products to meet the global AMR challenge. However, for SMEs in particular, the cost and timescale of the R&D process is a significant challenge.

I was pleased to see in the Government’s response to the Accelerated Access Review at the end of last year the announcement of a new accelerated access pathway to support R&D for the most innovative products. The pathway will designate around five breakthrough products a year, which will receive bespoke support from government to take new innovations from lab bench to bedside. Given that there have been no new antibiotics in the past 30 years, the pathway is an excellent opportunity to speed up the development of new antimicrobials and to get ahead of the AMR threat. Will the Minister confirm whether the pathway will prioritise novel antimicrobials when allocating breakthrough product status? Will the Minister join me in meeting Matoke to get a first-hand account of the challenges faced by SMEs on the front line of the struggle against AMR?