Large drugmakers are developing fewer antibiotics, analysis finds

The article highlights the report’s finding on the shrinking number of antimicrobial projects being developed by large pharmaceutical companies. Dropping from 92 to 60 projects over the past five years, this comprises a 35% decline between the most recent iteration of the report and the 2021 iteration.

It also mentions the report’s finding that only 13% of 39 antimicrobial pipeline projects targeting priority pathogens listed by the World Health Organization are being developed for children under five years old.

It quotes Jayasree K. Iyer, CEO of the Access to Medicine Foundation: “The situation is dismal. You’ve got such a small number of companies innovating in new antibiotics and the state of access is poor. If we see more pullbacks it will be quite bad.”

In addition to featuring the report’s main findings, the article also notes promising developments in the AMR sector, such as the creation of the AMR Action Fund, the Partnership on One Health Antimicrobial Resistance and the UK’s Antimicrobial Products Subscription Model, and a similar initiative in the US, the Pasteur Act, which is yet to be passed in Congress.