Low interest in antibacterials

Hedwig Kresse, lead infectious disease analyst at Datamonitor, believes that Big Pharma’s low interest in antibacterials means that the only defence is improved hygiene in hospitals and stringent measures to prevent spread:

“Over the past decade, Big Pharma interest in the antibacterials market has overall declined due to several factors. The most important ones are the fast development of resistances against many drugs, which shortens product lifespans for new antibiotics, as well as the high level of genericisation throughout the antibacterials segment, which further reduces the commercial opportunity for new drugs. As a consequence, there is an overall lack of new antibiotics in development pipelines.

Driven by a high medical need for new drugs and associated media hype, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has recently been the key focus of attention for antibiotic drug developers, leading to the launch of several new antibiotics targeted at MRSA such as Pfizer’s Zyvox (linezolid) or Cubist’s Cubicin (daptomycin).

Considering the availability of several treatment options for MRSA, physicians now perceive multi-drug resistant gram negative infections, such as those caused by NDM-1 producing bacteria, as a far more severe threat.

Treatment options for those infections are already limited, while there are only few new antibacterials targeted at gram-negative infections in development. In the absence of new drugs, combination therapy of existing therapies remains a last resort, although this is likely to further drive resistance development. Improved hygiene in hospitals and stringent measures to prevent spread will be paramount to counter the threat posed by these infections."