BIA response to consultation on antimicrobial subscription model

Following the launch of the pilot scheme for the antimicrobial products subscription model in 2022, the BIA welcomes this consultation on the proposals to extend this approach to more antimicrobial products and across the four nations of the UK. The UK is the first country in the world to implement a subscription-based payment model for antimicrobials, and this represents a significant step forward in developing the necessary global pull incentive to stimulate the required investment.

The BIA strongly supports the purpose of the antimicrobial products subscription model in stimulating investment into R&D for novel antimicrobials. To make sure that the model is as effective as possible, the BIA has made a number of recommendations, set out in our consultation response. These recommendations include:

• Revising the proposed non-clinical eligibility criteria to ensure that they do not inadvertently exclude smaller companies
• Making changes to the proposed scoring system to ensure that the non-standard and narrow-spectrum approaches are not undervalued
• Revising the proposed evidence requirements to ensure that they are realistic for companies to deliver
• Enabling a greater dialogue between the authorities and companies throughout the both the tendering and scoring process to reduce the risk of process failing
• Introducing a pre-qualification mechanism to flag pipeline products as potentially being eligible for the subsciption model and stimulate early-stage investment