Sexually transmitted infections.
Once-curable bacterial sexually transmitted infections are becoming untreatable.
It was a century ago that syphilis, a sexually transmitted infection (STI), became the first disease to be treatable with antibiotics, sparking a golden era in modern medicine and slashing the burden of STIs. Fast forward to today, bacterial STIs are experiencing a resurgence with record high levels. The rise and spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one major contributing factor.
By rendering antibiotics less effective, AMR has made it increasingly difficult to treat some bacterial STIs.
Potentially curable STIs acquired
every day.
New gonorrhoea infections globally each year, making it the second most common bacterial STI.
Spent annually treating STIs in
the US alone.
Only 1
Recommended treatment
for gonorrhoea remains effective.
Drug resistance is outpacing antibiotic innovation for STIs.
Research and development of new STI treatments remains chronically neglected and underfunded. As antibiotics lose effectiveness to drug resistance, there are hardly any new options being developed to replace them.
Gonorrhoea is a stark example: ceftriaxone, the last new treatment for this STI, was introduced over 40 years ago.
Today we are seeing increasing resistance to ceftriaxone.
Developing new and effective antibiotics.
GARDP’s work on STIs focuses on:
- Identifying new drug candidates through its unique antibiotic R&D and access model to complete development, and bring them to market, ensuring that high-risk populations have access to them.
- Embedding access from the start in the pharmaceutical development of affordable products and in the clinical and non-clinical research needed to develop optimal and appropriate treatments.
- Using innovative licensing agreements to manufacture and commercialize affordable treatments once approved.
- Conducting surveillance and prevalence studies in high-risk populations in LMICs, and working with local partners to introduce new treatments in ways that improve outcomes and slow resistance.
- Building novel access pathways with partners at the national level to ensure treatments are affordable, quality-assured, and aligned with public health needs.
With an initial focus on Neisseria gonorrhoeae, one of WHO’s priority pathogens, GARDP is advancing the global goal of reducing gonorrhoea incidence by 90% by 2030, through the development of innovative antibiotic treatments such as zoliflodacin. In the long-term, GARDP aims to potentially expand its impact to other priority bacterial STIs, including Treponema pallidum (syphilis), Mycoplasma genitalium and Chlamydia trachomatis.
Programme goals
GARDP aims to demonstrate how its unique antibiotic R&D partnership model can help address the global AMR public health failure by enabling the right antibiotic treatments to be developed and made available to people who need them.
The STI programme has therefore set the following goals:
Goal 1
Develop a new, accessible treatment for gonorrhoea, an infection that is in danger of once again becoming untreatable.
Goal 2
Create a sustainable supply of antibiotics
for gonorrhoea to replace drugs that are being lost to resistance today and in the future.
Goal 3
Explore different interventions for other
STIs, beyond gonorrhoea, in line with GARDP’s strategy.
GARDP’s STI projects
Zoliflodacin
GARDP is developing zoliflodacin, a new first-in-class, single-dose, oral antibiotic for multidrug-resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae. It is the first treatment developed solely for gonorrhoea, and the first to be developed by a non-profit R&D model.
GARDP has the rights to register and commercialize the product in more than three quarters of the world.
Debio1453
GARDP is collaborating with Debiopharm on a license agreement to pursue the development of Debio1453, a novel, first-in-class antibiotic targeting Neisseria gonorrhoeae. The partnership aims to ensure that gonorrhoea continues to be treatable by replenishing the antibiotic pipeline.
Through the agreement, GARDP has the rights to manufacture and commercialize the drug in more than 160 countries.
