Inside STAT: Development of new antibiotics will require new incentives, experts say

THE SUPERBUG STAPHYLCOCUS EPIDERMIDIS DISPLAYED ON AN AGAR PLATE. (WILLIAM WEST/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

Superbugs are no joke. Combine that with our dwindling arsenal of antibiotics, and it’s enough to give anyone — me, included — anxiety about the gloomy outlook for combating antibiotic resistance. The UN has already estimated superbugs may kill some 10 million people yearly by 2030. And yet, companies keep bowing out of the space and there seems to be little incentive to plug away at new therapies. But increased antibiotic use is what leads to resistance in the first place, so it’s hard to incentivize companies to create new drugs. “We want biotechs and pharma to create new products, but we don’t want them to sell any,” Peter Jackson, executive director of the AMR Center in the U.K., told STAT’s Meghana Keshavan. Read more on plans to jump-start antibiotic development here.