New PhRMA Report Shows Nearly 90 Medicines in Development to Fight Drug-Resistant Infections, but Future Pipeline Remains Challenging

 The discovery and introduction of antibiotics in the 1940s transformed modern medicine and enabled tremendous progress in health care and life expectancy. Today, this progress is being threatened by a health crisis on the rise: antimicrobial resistance (AMR). AMR affects at least 3 million Americans and results in 48,000 U.S. deaths annually. The World Bank Group’s 2017 report on drug-resistant infections estimates that unless action is taken, AMR globally could take 10 million lives annually by 2050, a higher toll than from cancer. If we fail to address the crisis, many modern medical advances that depend on antibiotics—such as routine surgery, cancer therapy and treatment of chronic disease—may be jeopardized.