Non-profits fill gaps in the broken market for antibiotics

Push-pull action will be needed if the battle against antimicrobial resistance is to succeed. The pull has to come from financial incentives to repair the broken market for antibiotics and make it worthwhile for the pharmaceutical industry to bring promising drugs to market.

Yet despite signs that governments and the industry are beginning to tackle this — such as by finding ways to pay companies for developing drugs that will not be used under normal circumstances — there is still a long way to go. But the push side is looking more encouraging. A ferment of research is producing new antibiotics, using technologies ranging from conventional “small molecule” chemistry to more biological approaches that enlist other microbes or viruses to attack harmful bacteria.