As the superbug problem in the U.S. becomes more ominous with the discovery of one resistant to last-resort antibiotic colistin, the spotlight is now on developing new financial incentives to reward efforts on fighting the emerging threat.
There is a renewed interest among drugmakers to develop medicines fighting antibiotic-resistant bacteria, but actual development – which entails serious amounts of resources – is unlikely to happen without compensation, according to industry experts.
In the U.S. alone, antibiotic-resistant bacteria leads to 2 million life-threatening infections as well as 23,000 deaths every year.
"The return on investment based on the current commercial model is not really commensurate with the amount of effort you have to put into it," warned David Payne, head of antibiotic drugs at GlaxoSmithKline.
Back in January, about 80 pharmaceutical and diagnostic firms – including giants like Glaxo, Pfizer, Merck, and Johnson & Johnson – signed a declaration that calls for governments and private companies to create incentives to spur research and development of new antibiotics.
In their proposed business model, profit is not linked to sales, but instead to lump-sum rewards from governments. This month, for instance, a government panel in the UK suggested offering up to $1.5 billion to drug companies that successfully produce new antibiotics.
The much-feared superbug gene mcr-1 has been recently found for the first time in the U.S., particularly in a Pennsylvania woman who fought a bad infection last month. It was actually a case of E.coli, but scientists reminded that this gene can turn up in any bacteria – including ones that are already difficult to treat.
Mcr-1 is detected on a tiny piece of DNA known as a plasmid, which bacteria can transfer easily to each other, even between species through a kind of interspecies bacterial intercourse. While bacteria already capably mutate at a binding rate, plasmids offer an added route toward mutation.
The antibiotic colistin is deemed the antibiotic of last resort because it is often the only one to work against a type of superbug called carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE). If a CRE superbug then gets hold of mcr-1 gene, the infected person or animal would have no other treatment choice.
The strain found in the woman remains treatable, but experts fear that the mcr-1 gene in the bacteria can spread to other bacteria types that are already drug-resistant.
The last new antibiotic drug to be launched was ceftaroline in 2010, where it took only a year for the first staph germ that resisted its power to emerge. Bacteria are known to be resistant quickly – in 1943, by the time penicillin was introduced, staph had already become resistant.
Photo: NIAID | Flickr
