Superbugs: why it’s so hard to stop the ‘silent pandemic’

In the Financial Times, Hannah Kuchler takes a long look at the challenges in developing new antibiotics. AI technology can speed up initial stages of development but even when new drugs are ready, they enter what the author describes as the 'broken market'.

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The issues are seen as the result of a failure of investment - by pharmaceutical companies and governments in the development of new drugs, and by governments and health systems not willing to pay enough for their medicines to cover the cost of new drug development, especially as these need to be used sparingly to avoid the risk of increased resistance.

The Foundation's CEO, Jayasree Iyer is quoted, saying there is a need for global solutions - this can't be tackled country by country: “Everybody’s problem becomes nobody’s problem. This has been on the political agenda for years now. Very little has been on the political agenda for this long.”

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