Henry Skinner (pictured above) has been appointed the first chief executive officer of the AMR Action Fund, an initiative aiming to strengthen and accelerate antibiotic development.
Skinner joins the AMR Action Fund with extensive biomedical and investment funding experience, having spent decades in the biomedical research, venture and the pharmaceutical industries.
Most recently, he served as the senior vice president of venture at Tekla Capital Management.
Prior to that, he has served as vice president and deputy head and managing director of the Novartis Venture Fund, as well as executive director, head strategic alliances at Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research.
Skinner also worked as the chief executive officer of the small, antibiotic-focused biotech SelectX Pharmaceuticals and president and chief executive officer at NeoGenesis Pharmaceuticals.
“I am honoured to join the AMR Action Fund and its incredibly important mission. Having worked on this issue from many angles throughout my career, I know how badly novel antibiotics are needed, and I also know how many obstacles currently prevent them from being developed and reaching patients,” commented Skinner.
“I am proud and excited to lead the AMR Action Fund in its efforts to tackle the global challenge of AMR. Thank you to everyone involved in developing this critical and groundbreaking initiative, and in particular to the interim CEO of the AMR Action Fund, Martin Bott, for getting us to this point,” he added.
The AMR Action Fund is an initiative created to bring two to four new antibiotics to patients by 2030 – treatments which are urgently needed to address the rapid rise of antibiotic resistance, which is a part of the broader issue of antimicrobial resistance.
It was developed by the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) and its member biopharmaceutical companies, in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Investment Bank and the Wellcome Trust