About the Event

The emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria poses a significant and growing threat to cancer treatment outcomes. People with cancer are more susceptible to infections due to the lowering of immune defences, while surgery and treatments like bone marrow transplants, radiotherapy and chemotherapy put the immune system under immense pressure. As many as 1 in 5 cancer patients undergoing treatment are hospitalized due to infection and antibiotics are the main line of defence.

A broken antibiotics market means few new drugs are being developed. Between 1999 and 2014, only 25 new antibiotics entered the global market, none of which targeted Gram-negative bacteria, responsible for most resistant infections. To address this crisis, the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) is developing new and improved treatments and is working to ensure they are sustainably accessible for every person who needs them.