The outlook for the arrival of effective new antibiotics is bleak, according to a new analysis by the World Health Organisation.
There are products in development but they offer "little benefit" over existing treatments, according to the WHO analysis.
And very few – just two – target the Gram-negative bacteria that are the source of the most critical multi-drug resistance, WHO said.
It found 60 products in development – 50 of them antibiotics and ten of them biologics.
WHO found that research and development mainly comes from small or medium sized enterprises, rather than the large pharmaceutical companies.
Its study found that the development of drugs to treat TB and C.difficile is "more promising."
WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “Never has the threat of antimicrobial resistance been more immediate and the need for solutions more urgent.
“Numerous initiatives are under way to reduce resistance, but we also need countries and the pharmaceutical industry to step up and contribute with sustainable funding and innovative new medicines.”
Hanan Balkhy, from WHO, added: “It’s important to focus public and private investment on the development of treatments that are effective against the highly resistant bacteria because we are running out of options."
https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/330420/9789240000193-eng.pdf
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