Geneva, 12 September 2024—The Government of Japan has granted additional funding to the Global Antibiotic Research & Development Partnership (GARDP) to support its vital work in developing new treatments for drug-resistant infections.

The investment by Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare supports GARDP’s integrated R&D and access model by funding its scientific affairs and discovery work as well as its clinical activities aimed at developing treatments for serious bacterial infections in adults and children, sepsis in newborns, and sexually transmitted infections.

The additional US$1.8 million for the period April 2024 to March 2025 is part of a one billion yen pledge to GARDP over a five-year period which started in 2020.

“The Japanese government’s continued funding of GARDP signals a solid commitment to countering antimicrobial resistance and ensuring that the most vulnerable people, including women, children and babies, have access to effective treatments for drug-resistant infections,” said Manica Balasegaram, Executive Director of GARDP. “Japan continues to play a leading role in helping us achieve our strategic objectives.”

In March of this year, GARDP hosted a partnership event in Tokyo, bringing together the Japanese government, partners and parliamentarians to present its new five-year strategic plan to counter antimicrobial resistance (AMR). By 2028, GARDP aims to demonstrate how its integrated R&D and access model can help to address the global AMR public health failure by enabling the right antibiotic treatments to be developed and made available to people who need them.

“We are proud to continue to support GARDP’s innovative and cost-effective partnership model in tackling the AMR crisis,” said Dr Hajime Inoue, Senior Assistant Minister for Global Health, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan. “GARDP is leading the way in developing a pipeline of priority antibiotic treatments that address public health needs while strengthening the overall ecosystem for R&D and access.”

About GARDP

The Global Antibiotic Research & Development Partnership (GARDP) is a not-for-profit organization that develops new antibiotic treatments for drug-resistant bacterial infections that pose the greatest threat to human health, and makes them accessible to the people who need them. It puts public health needs at the centre of antibiotic drug development to address the immediate crisis of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Its work is funded by the governments of Canada, Germany, Japan, Monaco, the Netherlands, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the Canton of Geneva, the European Union, as well as Global Health EDCTP3, the RIGHT Foundation, Wellcome and other private foundations. GARDP was created by the World Health Organization and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) in 2016 and legally registered as the GARDP Foundation in Geneva, Switzerland in 2018. www.gardp.org