More Americans die each year from antibiotic-resistant bacteria than AIDS, and there are no new drugs coming

Drug companies aren't developing new antibiotics because they not profitable. Not criticizing them, they are a business. That is the reason we also need government research. Pure capitalism does not work well. A balance is needed.

http://qz.com/144761/more-americans-die-each-year-from-antibiotic-resistant-bacteria-than-aids-and-theres-no-new-drugs-coming/


By Tim Fernholz @timfernholz November 7, 2013

“We’re in the post-antibiotic era,” Dr. Arjun Srinivasan, the deputy director of the US Centers for Disease Control, tells PBS. His agency just reported that at least 23,000 Americans die each year from antibiotic-resistant infections, more than the 15,000 who die from AIDS, notes health researcher Bill Gardener. And we’re running out of options.

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So where are the pharmaceutical companies? Largely pulling out of antibiotic research, which they view as less profitable than blockbuster drugs for cancer or lifestyle drugs targeting the aging baby-boomer population. Pharmaceutical research spending has shrunk overall in the last three years, and many companies, including Pfizer, Roche, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Eli Lilly, just don’t bother with antibiotics that could kill enterobacteriaceae, another urgent threat:

----- [The irony is that this makes the people at the drug companies as susceptible to the drug-resistant germs as the rest of us.]

Much basic drug research has fallen to the government, but budget negotiations in Washington aren’t likely to fund an effective response. Both the CDC and the National Institute of Health, which makes grants to medical researchers, face further spending cuts as lawmakers contemplate reducing the budget of their parent, the Department of Health and Human Services, as much as 18.6% from last year’s already-shrunk spending:

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The US government is taking some action to solve this problem, giving a special grant of $40 million to one company, GlaxoSmithKline, that still maintains a robust antibiotic research program, and allowing companies that produce them five extra years of protection from generic competition.

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