Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your time.

GARDP welcomes this declaration, which supports our mission of antibiotic R&D and access.

As the GRAM study, published last week, makes clear, this declaration could not come at a more critical time.

With the number of people dying from drug-resistant infections now expected to rise sharply, we have reached a tipping point.

Existing countermeasures, like antibiotic stewardship and vaccination, have helped to keep drug resistance at bay, but the greatest gains have already been made.

We should now expect diminishing returns unless there is a radical shift; antibiotics access and R&D must become a priority for all countries.

Because the right antibiotics are not being developed, and even when they are, the majority of the world don’t have access to them, particularly in low- and middle-income countries where the burden of drug-resistant disease is the greatest.

Improving people’s access to antibiotics could prevent more than 50 million deaths by 2050.

However, to achieve that, people will need access to both old and new antibiotics, especially those that target difficult-to-treat Gram-negative infections, which will make up an increasing proportion of infections.

This will place everyone at increased risk, but particularly newborns, who are too young to benefit from most vaccines and for whom too few antibiotic treatments are available.

GARDP’s model not only addresses this historic public health failure by delivering affordable antibiotics and global access, but does so in an extremely cost effect way.

We factor access into every stage of antibiotic development, from scientific discovery and clinical development, to supporting the manufacturing, registration and introduction of treatments.

With the support of governments, foundations, and the pharmaceutical industry, and through our partnerships, we are accelerating development and making progress towards developing new improved treatments for the greatest needs.

And as we embark on our next strategic phase, we will be expanding our portfolio, adding new treatments, and welcome the declaration’s support of this.

Thank you.