EU Commissioner visits HIPS
Dr Vytenis Andriukaitis, EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, visited the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) to inform himself about multidrug-resistant pathogens and the strategies used to fight them. Prof Rolf Müller, Director of the Institute, presented the research conducted in this field and illustrated how they are integrated into the German Center for Infection Research.
Former heart surgeon and EU Commissioner Dr Vytenis Andriukaitis’ major concern is to fight the increasingly emerging multidrug-resistant pathogens in European hospitals during his term of office. In order to get a comprehensive overview of this topic, he informed himself in detail about European research in this field. His interest in new antibiotic agent candidates from academic research led him to visit the HIPS.
Rolf Müller praised the EU Commission’s work in the field of combatting infections and referred to various EU health agencies such as the ECDC, EMA, EFSA and the Joint Programming Initiative in Sweden. However, he criticized the fact that almost no EU funding reaches the field of basic research for agents which is predominantly in the hands of academic research institutes. Furthermore, Müller criticized the huge financing gap before—and in— the preclinical phase, which often thwarts the translation of promising candidates into agents for clinical use.
In the subsequent discussion with the HIPS researchers, Commissioner Andriukaitis commiserated the European pharmaceutical industry’s lack of interest in researching new antibiotics, and added that Europe does not have sustainable financing in the field of antibiotic agent research.
Antibiotic research at the DZIF
Developing new antibiotics and fighting hospital pathogens and antibiotic-resistant bacteria constitute key research themes at the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF). At the DZIF, 35 institutions work together across Germany to jointly develop drugs and vaccines. The HZI, and with this the HIPS, are DZIF members; Rolf Müller coordinates the research field “Novel Antibiotics”.