GARDP’s history.
The headlines in 2015 were alarming.
A deadly superbug was spreading in hospitals in Australia. An outbreak of drug-resistant gonorrhoea threatened public health in England. The superbug “NDM-1” had reached 70 countries. The BBC warned that the world was on cusp of a ‘post-antibiotic era’. Even as bacteria were becoming more and more resistant to antibiotics, pharmaceutical companies were exiting the antibiotic development industry. The work had become more difficult and expensive, so now the risks outweighed the rewards. And the antibiotics that were being introduced were not particularly innovative – with no new class of antibiotics in nearly 30 years.
Amidst this backdrop and owing to the growing recognition for the grave threat posed by antimicrobial resistance (AMR), the Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance (2015) was adopted at the World Health Assembly.
The GARDP story
GARDP was created in 2016 by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Drugs for Neglected Disease initiative (DNDi) as part of the global response to help deliver on the new Global Action Plan on AMR.
Following an initial incubation period in DNDi, GARDP was legally established in 2018 as a Swiss foundation (GARDP Foundation). Three years later, in 2021, the Swiss government granted GARDP legal privileges and immunities to facilitate GARDP’s collaboration with others working in the field of public health and in recognition of GARDP’s major role in the fight against antibiotic resistance.
Today, GARDP is a not-for-profit organization with close to 100 staff. The broader GARDP global network includes GARDP Africa, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative, and associated DNDi regional offices in Brazil, India, Japan, Kenya, and Malaysia. Together with essential support from donors and key research and development partnerships, the GARDP global network makes it possible to carry out global research and drug development trials. It also helps to expand access to antibiotics for appropriate use, in close connection with communities around the world.
GARDP thanks its supporters for their vital contribution to countering antibiotic resistance.
The DNDi-GARDP alliance.
The alliance relies on GARDP’s and DNDi’s joint vision of carrying out R&D to address patient needs and enabling access to drugs. Following the successful three-year incubation of GARDP by DNDi, both organizations wanted to preserve and build efficiency gains by sharing certain functions and best practices.
The two organizations therefore formalized this collaboration through an alliance agreement, which is based on strengths and complementary areas of expertise of the two organizations, including sharing regional offices to optimize staffing and share overhead costs, and jointly investing in a CMC (Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Controls) platform.
Learn more
2014 WHO technical consultation on innovative models for new antibiotics’ development and preservation
2014 Joint WHO-DNDi meeting on fostering the development and rational use of new antibiotics
2015 Investing in the development of new antibiotics and their conservation: setting up a global antibiotic research and development partnership