Antimicrobial Resistance

USP has a 200-year history of improving public health. From our efforts in the 19th century to protect patients from poor-quality medicines to safeguarding compounded drugs following the 2012 New England Compounding Center fungal meningitis outbreak, we help ensure medicine quality and safety through the standards we set and programs we offer. 

Today, we face the deadly threat posed by antimicrobial resistance (AMR), defined by the World Health Organization  as "the ability of a microorganism like (bacteria, viruses and some parasites) to stop an antimicrobial (such as antibiotics, antivirals and antimalarials) from working against it."  Resistance occurs naturally, but misuse and overuse of antimicrobials hasten the process. Substandard or poor-quality medicines further contribute through subtherapeutic dosing, allowing resistant strains to flourish and become more virulent. Without a collective response at a global level, AMR could lead to 10 million deaths a year by 2050. 

We are aggressively addressing the impact of AMR and poor-quality medicines through research, policy and advocacy. Through the USP Quality Institute we provide much needed research to better understand medicine quality's role in AMR. Our policy recommendations offer ways to better integrate quality into national action plans combatting AMR, while we encourage dialogue, building awareness and collaboration at both regional and local levels.   And our Medicines We Can Trust campaign builds advocacy for medicine quality worldwide.