Judges announced for global innovation prize on community access to antibiotics 

Today the Trinity Challenge has announced the panel of judges who will be awarding prizes as part of the Trinity Challenge on Community Access to Effective Antibiotics, a new innovation competition with a grand prize of up to £1 million which was launched last month.

The Challenge is focused on finding new data-driven solutions from innovators, NGOs and researchers working in low- and middle-income countries to address the issues of improving stock control and/or countering the use of substandard or falsified oral antibiotics for humans and/or animals.

Chaired by Dr Divleen Jeji (India Lead, Google Health), the judges panel will convene an international, diverse group of health and innovation leaders from the public and private sectors.

The full panel for the Trinity Challenge on Community Access to Effective Antibiotics is as follows:

• Chair: Dr Divleen Jeji, India Lead, Google Health, Google
• Prof Diane Ashiru-Oredope – Lead Pharmacist, AMR and Co-Lead AMR PROGRESS Team, UK Health Security Agency
• Prof Christopher Butler – Professor of Primary Care, Clinical Director, University of Oxford Primary Care Clinical Trials Unit
• Dr Céline Caillet – Deputy Head, Medicine Quality Research Group, University of Oxford
• Prof Otto Cars – Professor, Department of Medical Sciences, Uppsala Universitet
• Dr Anna Farra – Coordinator of the Middle East Medical Unit, Antimicrobial Stewardship Referent, Médecins Sans Frontières OCB
• Prof Ana Gales – Professor, Infectious Diseases, Universidade Federal de São Paulo
• Amit Khurana – Director, Sustainable Food Systems, Centre for Science and Environment
• Prof Patricia Kingori – Professor and Wellcome Senior Investigator, Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities
• Dr Toby Leslie – Global Technical Lead, Fleming Fund / Mott MacDonald
• Dr Jane Lwoyero – Technical Officer, AMR and Food Safety, World Organisation for Animal Health
• Winnie Nambatya – Lecturer of Clinical Pharmacy, Makerere University
• Dr Megan Neary – Senior Research Manager for Therapeutics, Wellcome Trust
• Prof Natalie Schellack – Professor of Pharmacology, University of Pretoria
• Prof H. Rogier van Doorn – Director, Oxford University Clinical Research Unit – Hanoi, University of Oxford
• Erick Venant – Founder, Roll Back Antimicrobial Resistance Initiative
• Dr Evelyn Wesangula – Senior Antimicrobial Resistance Control Specialist, East Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA- HC)
• Dr Simone Weyand – Independent Scientist, University of Cambridge

About Antimicrobial Resistance

The speed at which antibiotic resistance is increasing predominantly relates to misuse and overuse of antibiotics across our healthcare systems and the agri-food industry, threatening our health, food, environment and global security. The second GRAM report estimates 39 million deaths from AMR by 2050 if robust action is not taken.

Furthermore, annual livestock loss from antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections is estimated between $575 – $953 billion in cumulative global gross domestic product (GDP) over the same period, affecting the consumption needs of between 746 million and 2 billion people and estimates by the World Bank suggest that failure to mitigate AMR could wipe away 3.8% of global GDP each year by 2050, pushing 28 million people into poverty.

About The Trinity Challenge

The Trinity Challenge (TTC) is a charity supporting the creation of data-driven solutions to help protect against global health threats. We believe data and analytics hold the key to building effective, affordable, and scalable solutions to current and future pandemics and health emergencies, and we are committed to working with governments, individuals and organisations across the world, to help improve our resilience against current and future threats to global health.

The Trinity Challenge was launched in 2020 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which highlighted a global need to be better prepared to tackle healthcare emergencies. The inaugural 2021 Challenge on pandemic preparedness received applications from 340 teams across 60 countries and distributed a prize fund of £5.7 million across eight winning initiatives.

In 2024, the second Trinity Challenge awarded a total of £2.7 million across four winning teams for its competition on tackling the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
The work of the Trinity Challenge has been made possible through the support of our Members.