The AMR Action Fund has opened its European office at FlexOffice at the Messeturm Basel. According to information from the company itself, the fund, which is headquartered in Boston in the USA, is the world’s largest public-private partnership (PPP) investing in the development of novel antibiotics. Alongside numerous reputable pharma groups, the Basel-based heavyweights Roche and Novartis are among the fund’s investors. The investment and innovation promotion agency Basel Area Business & Innovation supported the AMR Action Fund’s move to Basel.

“Basel has long been a hub of biopharmaceutical innovation”, comments Martin Heidecker, Chief Investment Officer of the fund, in a press release. “Establishing a presence within the city will allow the fund to operate and identify promising investment opportunities on a truly global scale”, he adds.

In order to address the growing threat of antibiotic resistance and improve market conditions, the fund will invest around one billion US dollars in clinical-stage biotech companies with the overarching aim of bringing two to four antimicrobial drugs to the market. “Expanding our presence to Basel is good for the fund and good for the antibiotics research ecosystem in general”, explains CEO Henry Skinner.

Strong network to combat antimicrobial resistance

The fund will benefit from the fact that intensive research in the area of drugs combatting antimicrobial resistance is already being carried out in the Basel Area. For example, the INCATE and NCCR AntiResist initiatives are already established in the city, in addition to the Spearhead project. The Swiss National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) AntiResist is financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation and sponsored by the University of Basel. For its part, the innovation incubator INCATE (Incubator for Antibacterial Therapies in Europe) is a partnership between NCCR AntiResist, the University of Basel’s innovation office and two German consortiums with four industrial partners. Spearhead, a consortium that consists of eight public and four private Swiss institutions, is likewise focused on finding solutions to the silent pandemic of antimicrobial resistance.