The sum, from British chemicals multinational Ineos, is one
of the largest donations given to Oxford University in its long history.
The funding will be used to launch a new institute to combat
the growing phenomenon of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), caused by the
increasing exposure of animals and humans to the medicines which treat diseases
caused by bacteria.
Increasing antibiotic resistance already causes 1.5 million
excess deaths each year, the University of Oxford has said.
By 2050, up to 10 million deaths each year could be caused
because antibiotics and other antimicrobial drugs are no longer effective
against common diseases.
Oxford's vice-chancellor Professor Louise Richardson said
the coronavirus pandemic had shown the urgent need to deal with the
"cataclysmic" threat posed to public health by antibiotic resistance.
"We certainly knew that there was a high potential for
another pandemic, we were reminded of that many times, and yet we were caught
unprepared," she said.
"We know that human antibiotics are, with every passing
year, becoming fewer and fewer because of the growth of resistance so it's
absolutely imperative that we act, and the impact of being unprepared for the
pandemic I think reinforces the importance of acting before it's too
late."
Ineos chief executive Jim Ratcliffe said collaboration
between industry and academia was "now crucial to fight against AMR".
"We are excited to partner with one of the world's
leading research universities to accelerate progress in tackling this urgent
global challenge," he added.
The discovery of penicillin -- the world's first antibiotic
-- was made at Oxford and has subsequently saved millions of lives around the
world.
In partnership with the British drugs company AstraZeneca, a
team at Oxford University also developed one of the first vaccines to protect
from Covid-19.
"The vaccines which have been created in record time
and which offer light at the end of the tunnel were developed using research
conducted long before Covid-19 struck," said David Sweetnam, an adviser to
the Ineos Oxford Institute.
"It's clear that we must be looking right now for new
antibiotics with the same urgency as we have been for vaccines," he added.