How will UK’s fixed-fee scheme for antibiotics help tackle the growing health crisis?

Health campaigners hope that a move by the UK to introduce a fixed-fee model to finance the development of new antibiotics will boost worldwide efforts to combat the growing problem of resistance to existing drugs. The UK is to launch the world’s first “subscription” incentive scheme for antibiotics, which will pay manufacturers a flat rate for making new drugs available to the NHS, regardless of how much or how little they are used. The pilot scheme announced on Tuesday will initially offer Pfizer of the US and Shionogi of Japan contracts capped at £10mn a year each, to supply a new antibiotic for up to 10 years.