Geneva, 18 August 2025 – Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has invested an additional USD 1 million to support GARDP’s activities from April 2025 to March 2026, bringing the total amount of investment to USD 10 million since 2020. The new funding will support GARDP’s discovery and exploratory research to identify new antibiotic candidates and help develop new and improved treatments for sexually transmitted infections and neonatal sepsis.

“We are truly grateful for the government’s continued support to GARDP as it signals Japan’s readiness to fight the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR),” said Manica Balasegaram, Executive Director of GARDP. “This contribution reflects Japan’s steadfast leadership in global health innovation.”

As a member of both the G7 and G20, Japan has been a global leader in advocating for the importance of addressing AMR and driving international discussions on the issue.

“The Government of Japan is committed to working with the international community to address AMR, a cross-border public health threat. Our continued support to GARDP will help strengthen infectious disease responses globally and accelerate the development of new antibiotics that we all need,” said Dr. Satoshi Ezoe, Senior Assistant Minister for Global Health, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. “Our financial support is complemented by strong collaboration with the Japanese pharmaceutical, medical technology and research sectors.”

Globally, AMR is already a leading global health threat, associated with 4.7 million deaths annually. But the latest research suggests that this global crisis will continue to worsen and it has reached an alarming tipping point. AMR mortality has remained relatively stable in recent decades, but is now expected to rise sharply, with the number of AMR-related deaths increasing by more than 70% by 2050.  During this time, AMR is forecast to kill 39.1 million people, with 169 million associated deaths.¹

In just over five years of collaboration with the Japanese government, GARDP has leveraged the expertise and innovation of the country’s robust science and technology sectors, including creating partnerships with the pharmaceutical firms and JIHS (the Japan Institute for Health Security).

Most recently, GARDP and the Institute of Science Tokyo jointly launched a research project on drug discovery using the university’s advanced capabilities in X-ray crystallographic analysis. The collaboration leverages Japan’s technical strengths to support the identification and characterization of promising compounds in the fight against AMR. This research may contribute to the discovery of innovative antibiotics that could help counter AMR.

 ¹ GBD 2021 Antimicrobial Resistance Collaborators. Global burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance 1990–2021: a systematic analysis with forecasts to 2050. Lancet 2024; 404: 1199–226

 GARDP

We are a not-for-profit global health organization driven to protect people from the rise and spread of drug-resistant infections, one of the biggest threats to us all. By forging the public and private partnerships that matter, we develop and make accessible antibiotic treatments for people who need them. Vital support for our work comes from the governments of Canada, Germany, Japan, Monaco, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the Canton of Geneva, the European Union, as well as the Gates Foundation, Global Health EDCTP3, GSK, the RIGHT Foundation, the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) and Wellcome. We are GARDP, the Global Antibiotic Research & Development Partnership. GARDP is registered under the legal name GARDP Foundation. www.gardp.org

Media contacts:

• Yoko Noda in Tokyo (Japanese/English): ynoda@dndi.org | +81 70 4465 5453