NEW YORK – BioMérieux, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Evotec announced on Wednesday the creation of a joint venture to develop and commercialize new antimicrobials and diagnostics. Called Aurobac Therapeutics, the JV aims to fight antimicrobial resistance and will be established with €40 million ($40.8 million) in funding.
The firms expect Aurobac Therapeutics to enable a precision medicine approach to bacterial pathogen identification and treatment, offering an improvement over empirical approaches using broad-spectrum antimicrobials.
Aurobac Therapeutics will be headquartered in Lyon, France, and Boehringer Ingelheim will invest €30 million to establish the company, while Evotec and BioMérieux will each invest €5 million, according to a statement.
"The grim prospect of a post-antibiotic era has many causes but only one solution: the development of new, targeted, and effective antimicrobial therapies," said Werner Lanthaler, CEO of Evotec. "We are confident that Aurobac will be able to generate much-needed progress to tackle the global challenge of AMR," he added.
Alexandre Mérieux, BioMérieux's chairman and CEO, noted that the firm's role in the JV will be to develop and commercialize diagnostic tests, including companion diagnostics, which can deliver rapid, reliable, and actionable results. "This participation in Aurobac is perfectly aligned with BioMérieux's full commitment to sustain antibiotic efficacy for future generations," Mérieux said.