The politics of alter-biotic innovation: Examining the making of alternative regimes of biomedical innovation in response to the global health crisis of antimicrobial resistance

Modern antibiotics greatly contributed to fighting infectious diseases.

However, today we face a resurgence of deadly drug-resistant microbes due the excessive use of antibiotics – a phenomenon known as antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

AMR is not only a pressing public health problem, but a unique and fundamental crisis that profoundly challenges existing regimes of pharmaceutical innovation that have for long provided societies with powerful, easily available antibiotics.

However, long-term solutions to AMR not only require new potent drugs, but also alternative scientific, economic and regulatory approaches in the development, distribution and deployment of antibiotic therapies – captured here by the term ‘alter-biotic innovation’.Yet, much-needed social science research on this complex innovation challenge is glaringly absent.

ALTERBIOTIC will break new ground by developing the unique research perspective of ‘alter-biotic innovation’ to conceptualize and investigate how alternative approaches are being envisioned, negotiated and developed to overcome the limitations of existing antibiotic regimes. It will focus on the major antimicrobial partnership initiatives launched in response to AMR.

In addition to product development, these initiatives drive a broader normative and political agenda: to radically rethink and alter regimes governing the development, valuation, regulation and use of antimicrobials in more sustainable and equitable ways.ALTERBIOTIC conducts a multi-sited analysis of alter-biotic innovation, based on qualitative-interpretive methodologies and ethnographic sensibility.

It employs an ambitious case study design integrating ethnographic vignettes with in-depth case studies through a combination of document analysis, interviews and participant observation.This research not only provides a fresh perspective to the social studies of AMR, but also novel approaches to study ‘innovation societies’ amid the multiple sustainability crises they confront.