The Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) is pleased to announce that Professor John-Arne Røttingen from Norway has joined the Board as its newest member.

Prof Røttingen is currently Norway’s Ambassador for Global Health as well as Adjunct Scientific Director at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health and Visiting Fellow of Practice at Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University.

He has held various roles in a range of national and international health organizations, including as the founding CEO of CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations), Chief Executive of the Research Council of Norway, and Executive Director of Infection Control and Environmental Health at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.

“I am delighted to join the GARDP Board and look forward to providing strategic advice and public health expertise to ensure that GARDP steps up efforts to tackle the existing somewhat invisible pandemic of antibiotic resistance and help us stay ahead of the bugs,” said Prof Røttingen.

“We are very excited to have Prof Røttingen join the GARDP Board, particularly during a critical time in which growing resistance is weakening the very foundation of modern medicine,” said Dr Manica Balasegaram, GARDP’s Executive Director. “His expertise will provide valuable guidance as GARDP expands its portfolio of new treatments for drug-resistant infections that pose the greatest threat to health.”

A recent global study attributed nearly 1.3 million deaths a year to antibiotic-resistant infections. Continued innovation and development of new antibiotics is urgently needed. GARDP is accelerating the development and global access for much-needed antibiotic treatments.