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After an explosion in the 80s and early 90s, antibiotic development ground to a halt as we 'won' the war. [1] Researchers and funding moved on to sexier things

After an explosion in the 80s and early 90s, antibiotic development ground to a halt as we 'won' the war. [1] Researchers and funding moved on to sexier things. From a capitalist perspective, it's much better to wait for resistant bacteria than produce yet another antibiotic in a crowded field. It's starting to pick up again. My money is on a continued battle until we develop nanomachines or wipe ourselves out. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_antibiotics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_antibiotics

refurb 11y ago
Only two truly new (new mechanism of action) antibiotics have been developed in the last 30-40 years. A number of new antibiotics were approved in the 80's and 90's, but I wouldn't say people thought we had won the war. The really challenging thing with antibiotics (as a reply below notes) is that if you create a great new antibiotic, nobody will use it unless they have to. There is resistance out there, but for most infections, the 40+ year old antibiotics work just fine. It's not like almost every other disease where the best drug gets used first line. Unless the financial incentives are fixed, it's unlikely there will be enough incentive to do the R&D to create new antibiotics.
- kbenson 11y ago
  There was an interesting radiolab episode recently[1] about this. The information in this discussion is somewhat contradictory to it, but it paints both an interesting history of antibiotics, and has an interesting story about the possible future. 1: http://www.radiolab.org/story/best-medicine/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/best-medicine/
  - brianclements 11y ago
    I really enjoyed this episode (as I do all the episodes really). The key information they presented was that just because bacteria evolve quickly to modern forms of antibiotics, doesn't mean they don't also reduce to their tolerance to older (in this case, 1000 years older) antibiotic-like medicines that we would dismiss outright because it wasn't created in the modern age. Old medicine was very much trial and error, but it doesn't mean it can't also be effective or worth looking into deeper for ideas.

refurb 11y ago

Only two truly new (new mechanism of action) antibiotics have been developed in the last 30-40 years. A number of new antibiotics were approved in the 80's and 90's, but I wouldn't say people thought we had won the war. The really challenging thing with antibiotics (as a reply below notes) is that if you create a great new antibiotic, nobody will use it unless they have to. There is resistance out there, but for most infections, the 40+ year old antibiotics work just fine. It's not like almost every other disease where the best drug gets used first line. Unless the financial incentives are fixed, it's unlikely there will be enough incentive to do the R&D to create new antibiotics.

kbenson 11y ago
There was an interesting radiolab episode recently[1] about this. The information in this discussion is somewhat contradictory to it, but it paints both an interesting history of antibiotics, and has an interesting story about the possible future. 1: http://www.radiolab.org/story/best-medicine/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/best-medicine/
- brianclements 11y ago
  I really enjoyed this episode (as I do all the episodes really). The key information they presented was that just because bacteria evolve quickly to modern forms of antibiotics, doesn't mean they don't also reduce to their tolerance to older (in this case, 1000 years older) antibiotic-like medicines that we would dismiss outright because it wasn't created in the modern age. Old medicine was very much trial and error, but it doesn't mean it can't also be effective or worth looking into deeper for ideas.