What to do with your confirmed/validated antimicrobial hits? Below we will explore a few antibiotic drug development initiatives our collaborators can reach out to with their CO-ADD data package, including the European-funded IMI ENABLE initiative and the recent EOI call by CARB-X.

1. IMI New Drugs for Bad Bugs ENABLE (European-based collaborators) - Rolling deadline

ENABLE is the European Gram-negative Antibacterial Engine, funded by the European Union's Innovative Medicine Initiative and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations. Launched in February 2014, the M€100 initiative offers funding to test and optimise molecules that are still in the earlier stages of drug discovery but have the potential to become future drug candidates capable of treating resistant Gram-negative infections. See EOI requirements and apply with your CO-ADD validated hits.

Project deliverables by 2020:

•     Identication of three antibacterial lead programmes which are confirmed as having promising antimicrobial activity
•     Identification of two antibacterial clinical candidate programmes for preclinical testing
•     Processing of at least one programme into preclinical and phase 1 clinical studies

2. CARB-X (global fund) - New round 2 EOI deadline: 31 Oct 2016

Launched in July 2016, CARB-X will accelerate a diverse portfolio of at least 20 high-quality antibacterial products towards clinical development leveraging $250 million in BARDA funds with matching funds from the Wellcome Trust and the AMR Centre. CARB-X applications are meant to be from companies.

CARB-X partners are the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Wellcome Trust of London, the AMR Centre of Alderley Park (Cheshire, United Kingdom), and Boston University School of Law. The four CARB-X accelerators are The Wellcome Trust, The AMR Centre, MassBio and CLSI (more information).

In the first year, the CARB-X portfolio will primarily focus on therapeutics to treat Gram-negative bacteria on the Serious or Urgent Threat List prepared by the CDC as well as any non-traditional approaches.

Download EOI and apply with your CO-ADD validated hits.

3. Collaborative Hub for Early Antibiotic Discovery (CHEAD) - 27 Sept 2016

The Collaborative Hub for Early Antibiotic Discovery (CHEAD) at the Broad Institute supports CARB-X by acting as an interdisciplinary center for early stage development of molecules identified by academic investigators engaged in antibiotic development and/or resistance research.

CHEAD will partner with academic laboratories to evaluate and accelerate the development of promising small molecule therapeutics toward Investigational New Drug/Investigational Device Exemption (IND/IDE) application. These molecules will fall into four categories:

• Those discovered through a whole-cell screen with a known, novel target
• Those with whole-cell activity as identified through novel biological phenotypes, but whose target may be unknown
• Those with activity against a novel target in a biochemical assay and some whole-cell activity
• Those found with an innovative and transforming platform with some whole-cell activity

> More info and application form

4. Talk to us about further development

CO-ADD makes no claim to IP or results. However we are open to discussing research partnerships in the context of the two options presented above or other development programs.

CO-ADD also possess the expertise and instrumentation to take on collaborative ventures that investigate the mode of action and target validation. The following screening options are not part of the CO-ADD free screening, but can be accessed through a separate collaboration for further investigation of your validated hits:

• Advanced microbiology
• Expertise in cell culture, transfection and protein expression, isolation and purification and assay development
• Synthetic and medicinal chemistry expertise
• ADMET and in vivo efficacy
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