Brits Lead Charge In Global Battle Against Antimicrobial Resistant Superbugs

Tackling an unmet need is a common focus for pharmaceutical companies when choosing the therapeutic areas they will concentrate on – but it is often not enough. Pharma business executives have also got to be able to see a clear route to returns on their investments. While no one doubts the huge medical challenge antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses, how to incentivize companies to work on solutions is proving to be more difficult. During BIO 2018, held in Boston, June 4-7, researchers from the UK discussed what efforts were being made to devise incentivization models.

The numbers verge on the apocalyptic. Currently, more than 50,000 people a year in the EU and US die from an antimicrobial resistant infection, often contracted when at the hospital for an unrelated and potentially trivial intervention. Extrapolated worldwide the number expands to 700,000 AMR-related deaths per year. More concerning is the forecast, from the 2016 O’Neill report on AMR, that without action, there could be more than 10 million deaths from AMR by 2050, which will also see $100 trillion lost from the world economy by that time