To tack­le su­per­bug scourge and re­vive R&D, in­cen­tivize FDA an­tibi­ot­ic ap­provals — drug­mak­ers, health groups urge US law­mak­ers

As su­per­bugs flour­ish, the in­dus­try play­ers con­tribut­ing to the ar­se­nal of an­timi­cro­bials are dwin­dling. Drug­mak­ers are en­ticed by green­er pas­tures, com­pared to the long ar­du­ous path to an­tibi­ot­ic ap­proval that of­fers lit­tle fi­nan­cial gain as treat­ments must be priced cheap­ly, and of­ten lose po­ten­cy over time as mi­crobes grow re­sis­tant to them. For one of the biggest threats to glob­al health, the li­on’s share of an­tibi­ot­ic de­vel­op­ment is tak­ing place in a hand­ful of labs of small bio­phar­ma com­pa­nies as their larg­er coun­ter­parts fo­cus on more lu­cra­tive en­deav­ors. Ex­ist­ing in­cen­tives to en­tice an­tibi­ot­ic R&D are too fee­ble to fix this bro­ken sys­tem, a group of drug­mak­ers, pub­lic health or­ga­ni­za­tions and doc­tors said in a let­ter to US law­mak­ers on Tues­day, urg­ing Sen­a­tors to take a fresh ap­proach to stim­u­late an­timi­cro­bial drug de­vel­op­ment by en­act­ing pol­i­cy mea­sures to in­crease the val­ue of a mar­ket­ed an­tibi­ot­ic.

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