Treating Antibiotics as Infrastructure

Send us Fan MailInfectious diseases are the second leading cause of death worldwide, killing tens of millions of people every year. COVID-19 alone has killed more than 6.8 million people, according to Johns Hopkins University. Drug-resistant superbugs directly kill 1.27 million people a year, according to one recent prominent study.Surely drug companies are all over this potentially lucrative market, with so many diseases to fight and treat?  However, they aren’t. The US Food and Drug Administration has not approved a new antibiotic since 2019, and only one truly new antibiotic has been approved since 1987.It’s partly because the money just isn’t there. Companies making cancer drugs raised about $7 billion in funding in 2020, while companies making antibiotics raised a fraction of that – just $160 million. Plus, it’s hard to bring a new drug to market. The National Institutes of Health estimates 90% of experimental drugs never even make it to testing in humans.In this episode, we are chatting with Kevin Outterson, a professor of law at Boston University and the founding Executive Director and Principal Investigator of Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator or CARB-X, a global nonprofit partnership funded by the U.S., U.K., and German governments; Wellcome; and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.Professor Outterson argues that antibiotics should be treated as infrastructure, and companies making new drugs to fight antimicrobial-resistant bacteria, viruses, and fungi –often called superbugs – should be treated as vital government contractors and paid upfront for the work they do that could save tens of millions of lives. Listen as he describes the problem, and potential solutions, with One World, One Health host Maggie Fox.