Global AMR & Sepsis Innovation Hubs: A Vision for Transforming Infection Management Worldwide By Gareth Presch *and Dr Ron Daniels BEM *
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is no longer a distant or abstract threat; it is one of the defining health challenges of our time. As Sally Davies has warned, failure to act risks AMR becoming an existential threat to humanity, potentially surpassing even climate change in its impact.
Yet AMR does not kill directly. The real and immediate danger is infection specifically infection that can no longer be treated. In most cases, the final pathway is sepsis: a life-threatening condition caused by the body’s overwhelming response to infection. According to the World Health Organization, sepsis is responsible for 1 in 5 deaths globally, affecting an estimated 49 million people and claiming 11 million lives each year.
This is not just a health crisis. It is a systems failure and an opportunity.
Investor Engagement and Market Momentum
Global investor engagement in antimicrobial resistance is rapidly accelerating, recognising AMR as both a critical health priority and a systemic economic risk. Initiatives such as the AMR Action Fund a landmark $1 billion public-private partnership are already investing in the development of urgently needed antimicrobial treatments, with the ambition to bring new antibiotics to patients within this decade . Alongside this, the Investor Action on Antimicrobial Resistance coalition, representing over $13 trillion in assets, has identified AMR as a systemic risk comparable to climate change, calling for coordinated global action across policy, healthcare, and industry .
The SDG3 Global AMR & Infectious Disease Centres initiative is actively engaging with this growing investor ecosystem aligning public health priorities with scalable, investable infrastructure. By creating globally connected centres that integrate data, diagnostics, research, and innovation, the programme offers a compelling platform for blended finance, public-private partnerships, and long-term value creation. This approach ensures that investment is not only directed toward drug development, but also toward the systems, data, and delivery models required to maximise impact, sustainability, and antimicrobial stewardship.
A Turning Point for Global Health (SDG3)
Sepsis and AMR sit at the heart of United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3 (Good Health and Wellbeing). They intersect with maternal health, child mortality, infectious diseases, universal health coverage, and pandemic preparedness.
Despite this, global efforts remain fragmented:
- AMR strategies operate separately from sepsis action plans
- Vaccination programmes are disconnected from diagnostics
- Pandemic preparedness is rarely integrated with everyday infection management This siloed approach is no longer viable.
From Fragmentation to Integration: A New Model
Through this initiative, led by World Health Innovation Summit CIC and partners including the UK Sepsis Trust we propose a fundamentally different approach:
Global AMR & Sepsis Innovation Hubs
These hubs will act as interconnected ecosystems spanning cities, regions, and countries to transform how we prevent, diagnose, treat, and recover from infection.
The Five Pillars of Transformation
1. Culture: Making AMR and Sepsis Personal
AMR has long been communicated as a future risk. That narrative has failed.
We must humanise the issue connecting it to real lives, real stories, and real consequences. Through community engagement, storytelling, and partnerships including the Global Social Prescribing Alliance we will embed awareness across society.
Health is not delivered solely in hospitals. It lives in communities.
2. Systems: Building Resilient Infection Management
Prevention remains our most powerful tool:
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Clean water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH)
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Vaccination access
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Infection prevention and control But prevention alone is not enough. We must also ensure:
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Rapid diagnosis
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Timely treatment
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Equitable access to care A key priority is integrating rapid and point-of-care diagnostics into real-world systems—bridging the gap between innovation and implementation.
3. Development: Rethinking the Antimicrobial Pipeline
New antimicrobials and vaccines are essential—but without better diagnostics and stewardship, they will fail.
We advocate for:
- Value-based (“Netflix-style”) procurement models
- Integrated diagnostics and therapeutics
- Incentives aligned with long-term societal benefit Innovation must be sustainable not just scientific, but economic.
4. Recovery: Supporting Survivors at Scale
Surviving sepsis is not the end of the journey.
Millions of survivors face long-term physical, cognitive, and psychological challenges. Yet structured rehabilitation is rarely available.
We propose scalable, digitally enabled recovery pathways:
- Personalised rehabilitation journeys
- Integration of wearable and patient-reported data
- AI-driven risk prediction for deterioration and readmission This is not only about recovery—it is about redefining long-term care.
5. Innovation Hubs: Data, Insight, and Action
At the core of this vision is the creation of Global AMR & Sepsis Innovation Hubs.
These hubs will:
- Aggregate and curate patient-level data
- Enable real-time dashboards for health systems
- Support research, AI, and precision medicine
- Inform smarter antimicrobial use Today, we treat sepsis as a single condition. Tomorrow, we will treat individuals.
By unlocking data responsibly, we can:
- Improve outcomes
- Reduce unnecessary antimicrobial use
- Build truly personalised care pathways
Why Cities? Why Now?
We will begin in a network of global cities from London and New York to Lilongwe and Delhi chosen for their diversity, urgency, and opportunity.
Cities are where:
- Innovation meets implementation
- Policy meets practice
- Data meets people They are the engines of scalable change.
A Collective Responsibility
This is not a challenge for healthcare alone.
It requires alignment across:
- Governments
- Industry
- Academia
- Communities It requires a shift in mindset from reactive to proactive, from fragmented to integrated, from global ambition to local action.
A Defining Legacy
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the vulnerabilities in our systems—but it also demonstrated what is possible when the world acts with urgency and collaboration.
We now face a choice.
Without action, antimicrobial resistance will render infections untreatable, and sepsis will claim tens of millions more lives each year.
With action, we can:
- Prevent avoidable deaths
- Preserve life-saving antimicrobials
- Build resilient, future-ready health systems The Global AMR & Sepsis Innovation Hubs are not just a project—they are a pathway.
A pathway to delivering SDG3. A pathway to transforming infection management. A pathway to safeguarding the future of human health.
The time to act is now.