Johnson and Johnson sign declaration to combat AMR

Johnson and Johnson last week signed the Declaration on Combating Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), which has already been signed by more than 80 companies and organizations.

The declaration is a call to action that was announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland outlining how the industry and governments could collaborate to address AMR, a condition that occurs when bacteria and microbes develop resistance to drugs. When the bacteria becomes resistant to drugs it makes life-threatening infections problematic or impossible to treat.

Antimicrobials have become crucial to extending life expectancy worldwide. In the last decade the number of bacteria and microbes that has grown resistant to antimicrobials has risen at a significant pace. A UK Review of the problem conducted independently suggests that if companies do not ban together on a global scale to solve this problem, drug-resistant infections could fatally impact 10 million lives each year by 2050. This has led to the call to action by the industry to find a way to develop new medicines to combat the ever-evolving bacteria.