Global antibiotic research

Global antibiotic research

In order to revitalize antibiotics research, the global pharmaceutical industry is called to pay $2 billion. As the result, companies who make new antibiotics will be guaranteed payments. At this moment, there are just several antibiotics in development, and the number of resistant bacteria is growing. According to Mr. O’Neill, we must start developing new drugs, in order to treat infections and allow modern medicine to cure people.

He also warned that resistant microbes can kill 10 million people by 2050 and this will cost the economy $100 trillion. Bacteria that are resistant to current drugs is spreading. This means that many people cannot be cured with current drugs. This fund of $2 billion over 5 years will be used to boost the research and development of new drugs and new treatments. The bigger part of this money will go to small biotech companies and universities.

A cheaper way that can be used to make current drugs more efficient is called ‘’resistance breaker’’. These are compounds that should make current drugs more effective. A company, Helperby Therapeutics, founded by Prof Anthony Coates from University of London has created a compound that can react against superbug MRSA. For now, this compound is known as HT61. It will go into clinical trials in India. There, it is developed under Cadila Pharmaceuticals India.

The team, who reviewed this compound said that this may be the solution for making current drugs last much longer. Mr. O’Neill said that huge pharmaceutical companies should pay for the testing and development and forget for the short-term profit gain and loss. Only with new drugs we can stop and treat the resistant bacteria.



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