Abstract

Antibiotic resistance has developed into a major public health concern due to the widespread prevalence of bacterial infections such as sepsis and urethritis and the frequent occurrence of opportunistic infections in immunocompromised patients. Unfortunately, the pipeline for new antibiotics has been almost stagnant for more than three decades. The main reason is that the antibiotics R&D market is dysfunctional since antibiotics R&D is a very risky business model that is not profitable and attractive for investors under current market and policy conditions. Our work analyzes the main economic and policy challenges in antibiotics R&D and highlights the need of rapid action in developing new push and pull incentives for antibiotics R&D. We suggest three core elements of a redesign of the R&D market: (1) levying a fee on the nonhuman use of antibiotics, (2) using these revenues to pay for market entry rewards, and (3) rewarding companies for the development of new antibiotics that are effective against resistant bacteria (‘the resistance premium’).

中文翻译：

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恢复抗生素研发市场以应对耐药性危机

摘要

由于败血症和尿道炎等细菌感染的广泛流行以及免疫功能低下患者中机会性感染的频繁发生，抗生素耐药性已发展成为主要的公共卫生问题。不幸的是，新抗生素的生产线几乎停滞了三十多年。主要原因是抗生素研发市场功能失调，因为在当前市场和政策条件下，抗生素研发是一种风险很大的商业模式，对投资者来说既无利润又有吸引力。我们的工作分析了抗生素研发中的主要经济和政策挑战，并强调需要迅速采取行动，为抗生素研发制定新的推动和拉动激励措施。我们建议重新设计研发市场的三个核心要素：