Seamus O’Brien

Seamus O’Brien joined the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) as R&D Director in July 2018 and is responsible for strategic development to delivery of a portfolio of antibiotic treatments for those priority infection with a significantly impacted by antibiotic resistance.
Previously, he was responsible, in AstraZeneca and then Pfizer, for building and leading public-private R&D collaborations to address the need to develop treatment options for drug resistant infections.
He played a leading role in establishing novel partnerships for with the US government’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and with the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) New Drugs 4 Bad Bugs programme within Europe as leader of both the COMBACTE-CARE consortium and a BARDA portfolio agreement addressing antibiotic development for multi-drug resistant infections. He has also represented both AstraZeneca and then Pfizer on the Infection Control Strategic Governance Group for IMI and the European Federation for Pharmaceutical Industry (EFPIA). . He played a leading role in building a standalone Infection unit within AstraZeneca and was responsible for bringing a novel antibiotic combination candidate through phase 1 to phase 2 and designing a clinical development programme aligned with emerging regulatory guidance.
Seamus has extensive experience in pharmaceutical drug development from preclinical to medical affairs including vaccine and antibiotic development and has a Ph.D in Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection and host immunity from the University of Leicester and first degree in Microbiology from Trinity College Dublin.