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> This is why all the major pharmaceutical companies have shut down their antibiotic divisions. Also, Radiolab recently noted[0] that antibiotic resistance can

> This is why all the major pharmaceutical companies have shut down their antibiotic divisions. Also, Radiolab recently noted[0] that antibiotic resistance can often be found in the wild within just a few years after a drug's discovery. Antibiotic resistance was found in the wild to penicillin before it was even widely used by the public. Others had a few years (or sometimes months): Streptomycin ~5 years Linezolid ~2 years Clindamycin ~1 year Piperacillin ~1 year Meticillin 11 months Why burn through 10 years of development for 1 year of sales? It doesn't even take very wide use before resistance gets around... [0] http://www.radiolab.org/story/best-medicine/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/best-medicine/

danieltillett 11y ago
Exactly. If there was money to made selling antibiotics they would have keep investing in this area. They have started again recently, but there is an awful long lead time to develop new drugs - even longer when you have laid off all the people skilled in this area.
mattlutze 11y ago
The episode took a turn, however, when they looked at Medieval versions of antibiotics -- a treatment for eye sties, I think they discussed -- they found the described treatment was wildly effective. The researchers they interviewed postulate resistance wanes when a treatment leaves the population for a while. The conclusion at the end was that it would be beneficial to have a big bevy of antibiotics and such, that we could rotate through as immunity came and went. In this ^ way, it would seem these pharmas, and the pharma market, needs to adopt a second perspective on antibiotics. They should look at a new drug not for revenues over the next 6 quarters, but over the next 6 decades. In that time frame the drug would hit, be shelved, hit, and repeat. Perhaps this would be one place that more permissive or advantageous patents would help, by encouraging growth in the antibiotic industry. That probably sounds unpopular given the general "no patents!" sentiment, but I there could be reason in it for at least some period of time.
refurb 11y ago
It's more complicated than that. Just because resistance happens, doesn't mean it happens on a broad scale. A lot of those older antibiotics you mentioned are still broadly used as a first line therapy. Since only a fraction of people are infected with resistant bacteria, they work for most infection. It's when the first line antibiotic stops working that you need to go to the newer antibiotics.

danieltillett 11y ago

Exactly. If there was money to made selling antibiotics they would have keep investing in this area. They have started again recently, but there is an awful long lead time to develop new drugs - even longer when you have laid off all the people skilled in this area.

mattlutze 11y ago

The episode took a turn, however, when they looked at Medieval versions of antibiotics -- a treatment for eye sties, I think they discussed -- they found the described treatment was wildly effective. The researchers they interviewed postulate resistance wanes when a treatment leaves the population for a while. The conclusion at the end was that it would be beneficial to have a big bevy of antibiotics and such, that we could rotate through as immunity came and went. In this ^ way, it would seem these pharmas, and the pharma market, needs to adopt a second perspective on antibiotics. They should look at a new drug not for revenues over the next 6 quarters, but over the next 6 decades. In that time frame the drug would hit, be shelved, hit, and repeat. Perhaps this would be one place that more permissive or advantageous patents would help, by encouraging growth in the antibiotic industry. That probably sounds unpopular given the general "no patents!" sentiment, but I there could be reason in it for at least some period of time.

refurb 11y ago

It's more complicated than that. Just because resistance happens, doesn't mean it happens on a broad scale. A lot of those older antibiotics you mentioned are still broadly used as a first line therapy. Since only a fraction of people are infected with resistant bacteria, they work for most infection. It's when the first line antibiotic stops working that you need to go to the newer antibiotics.