Collection 31 March 2023

Anti-infective drug development: histories, uses and policies

This Collection invites perspectives on the historical, socio-cultural and bio-medical facets of anti-infectives, including failure and success stories of anti-infective drugs, a discourse of pharmaceuticals and people inside the drug pipeline, and tightly focused examinations on policy or market decisions. We take historical perspectives as our point of departure and backbone but are not limited to it.

Research is primarily welcomed on the following five axes of anti-infective drug development, use, and policy; although other perspectives will be also considered:

● I, Imagination & Innovation

○ How has imagination and innovation regarding anti-infective drug development, use, and policy evolved?

○ What innovation is needed?

● II, Push, Pull, Politics, and Policy

○ How have financial investments, political interferences, and corporate/governmental policies influenced anti-infective drug development and use?

○ What barriers are there to fiscal, politics, or policy measures that inhibit or complicate anti-infective drug development and use?

● III, Co-constructed drugs: sociocultural approaches

○ How is the anti-infective drug pipeline socio-culturally constructed and shaped by both researchers and consumers in all its facets (research, clinical trials and efficacy, policy creation, commercialization, marketing and packaging, prescription, use and consumption, etc.)?

○ How is the unrecognition of these sociocultural dimensions (including gender, class, race, etc.) causing anti-infectious initiatives to fail? How taking them into account has resulted or would result in successful drug development and use?

● IV, Pharmaceutical Companies and ‘bulk antibiotics’

○ How do pharmaceutical companies view the anti-infective drug development pipeline and how did this gaze change over time?

○ How do pharmaceutical companies respond to policies, and how does industry prioritise anti-infectives within their product lines?

● V, Drug development - Inside the Lab.

○ How has the development of anti-infectives changed over time? Did empirical methodology affect the development of new antimicrobials?

○ What are the main lines of investigation nowadays and what are the prognostics to mitigate the shortage in new antibiotics?

This Collection supports and amplifies research related to SDG 3.

Editors

Christoph Gradmann ,

Christoph Gradmann

University of Oslo, Norway
Mirza Alas Portillo ,

Mirza Alas Portillo

University College Dublin, Ireland
Isabel M. Gómez Rodríguez &

Isabel M. Gómez Rodríguez

Instituto de Filosofía (IFS), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Spain
Erin L. Paterson

Erin L. Paterson

Université de Strasbourg, France

Lead Guest Editor:

Christoph Gradmann is a historian of medicine and science. Trained at universities in Germany and the UK, he became full professor at the University of Oslo in 2006 where he is currently heading the Department for Community Medicine and Global Health. His research interests range from the intellectual history of interwar Germany, through 19th century medical bacteriology, 20th drug development, antibiotics resistances to the history of tuberculosis in global health. It is the production of knowledge in hospitals, laboratories and industries that stands centre in his investigations. Such interests have resulted in a considerable oeuvre with three monographs, numerous editions, guest editorships and many papers. His “Laboratory Disease. Robert Koch’s Medical Bacteriology” of 2009 is considered the definitive biography of this German physician. A monograph on the 20th century history of African tuberculosis is forthcoming in 2024. www.med.uio.no/helsam/english/people/aca/ulrichcg/index.html

Guest Editors:

Mirza Alas Portillo is a doctoral researcher at University College Dublin (UCD) in Ireland. Her research focuses on the history of the antibiotics empty pipeline from the 1980s, particularly in the context of rising antimicrobial-resistant problems. She trained in public health and development, and her research interests include antibiotic innovation, global health policy and access to medicines. She has previously worked at the international level in Geneva in health policy, health diplomacy, and antimicrobial resistance.

Isabel María Gómez Rodríguez is a PhD Candidate in Social Studies of Science at the Institute of Philosophy of the Spanish National Research Council (IFS-CSIC) and at the Doctorate program in Logic and Philosophy of Science at the University of Salamanca. After obtaining her Bachelor’s Degree in Biotechnology at the University of Valencia, she specialized in Gender and Diversity Studies and Science, Technology and Innovation Studies at the University of Oviedo. Her work in this field is focused on ecofeminism as well as ontological, social, and bioethical dimensions of molecular biology, genetics, and biotechnology. She’s part of the How Did the Antibiotic Pipeline Run Dry? (DryAP) project, in which she conducts feminist historiography of science, focusing the power hierarchies inside the laboratory and experiences of Spanish women microbiologists researching on antibiotics during the 1980s-1990s.

Erin L. Paterson is a member of the Dry AP project, researching how health policy and regulations have impacted the drying of the antibiotic pipeline. She is based out of Strasbourg, France. Her research primarily focuses on global policy decisions, the intersection of global health institutions such as the WHO and NGO actors, the financial market’s influence on innovation, and the conception of pipeline maintenance in regards to antibiotic stewardship.