Ineos funds state-of-the-art institute for antimicrobial research at Oxford University

Ineos has donated £100 million (€112,25 million) to the University of Oxford to set up and equip a new, world-leading institute to conduct research into the growing global issue of antimicrobial resistance, or AMR.

AMR is currently responsible for an estimated 1.5 million excess deaths each year, a number that has been projected to grow to 10 million by the year 2050. Called the silent pandemic , AMR is one of the most underreported issues of our time, said surgeon David Sweetnam, adviser to the Ineos Oxford Institute,

Bacterial resistance, caused by the overuse and misuse of antibiotics in human populations, for instance, by failing to finish a full prescribed course of antibiotics; but also in agriculture, is a rapidly progressing problem and experts say the world is fast running out of effective antibiotics.

The problem is compounded by the fact that the lack of scientific interest and funding in recent decades in the field of new drug discovery has meant that no new antibiotics have been successfully developed since the 1980s. As a result, both new drug development and better management of the existing drugs that are still effective are urgently needed  - if a return to the pre-antibiotics era is to be avoided.

The new Ineos Oxford Institute will benefit from the internationally outstanding facilities and expertise of Oxford University, which played the key role in the origin of antibiotics following Fleming and Oxford’s discovery and development of penicillin in the last century. The IOI will create collaborative and cross-disciplinary links across the sciences, and will be based between two sites in Oxford, linking the University’s Department of Chemistry with the new Life & Mind Building, which is currently under construction.

“Innovative collaboration between industry, academia and government is now crucial to fight against AMR,” said Sir Jim Ratcliffe, chairman of Ineos. “Ineos in its 22 years has become the largest private company in the UK, delivering large-scale, ambitious technical projects with impactful results. We are excited to partner with one of the world’s leading research universities to accelerate progress in tackling this urgent global challenge.”

The majority of global antibiotic consumption by volume is used for agriculture, and drug use in animals is contributing significantly to their lessening effectiveness in humans. “At the moment we’ve got this ridiculous situation where we are using human antibiotics as animal growth promoters,” said Tim Walsh, a Professor of Medical Microbiology in Oxford’s Department of Zoology.  The Ineos Oxford Institute for AMR Research (IOI) will therefore focus on designing novel antimicrobials just for animals, as well as exploring new human drugs.

Alongside its drug discovery work, the IOI intends to partner with other global leaders in the field of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) to raise awareness and promote responsible use of antimicrobial drugs.

The donation by Ineos is one of the largest ever given to a UK University. Ineos has also funded several initiatives in public health in the past, such as backing childrens’ running programmes GO Run for Fun and The Daily Mile, funding a new wing at the UK’s Defence and Military Rehabilitation Centre, funding a childrens’ A&E at Southampton General Hospital and donating critical supplies of Ineos hand sanitizer to the front lines of the Covid pandemic.