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At least one disincentive is that if you do find an amazing new antibiotic effective against certain strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria, antibiotic stewar
by kirrent 7y ago
At least one disincentive is that if you do find an amazing new antibiotic effective against certain strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria, antibiotic stewardship means the medical community will try and use it only where necessary to slow any adaptation to the new drug. That makes your potential patient population much smaller.
- rkangel 7y agoIf we develop new ways to invent anti-biotics, such that we have a reasonable expectation of new ones being produced yearly, then maybe anti-biotic stewardship will become less important.
- SeanAppleby 7y agoYeah, this seems game theoretically problematic. We clearly want a deep warchest of antibiotics, but new antibiotics won't sell in any meaningful quantity likely, or even hopefully, until after their IP rights expire. I don't see how you make money here. Maybe the government should structure some new incentives for stocking the antibiotic warchest.
- whatshisface 7y agoHere's an interesting thought. Let's say that the number of possible antibiotics that can be discovered is so high that bacteria cannot simultaneously be resistant to all of them (plant immune systems, which involve a lot of small moleculea, indicate that this may be possible). Then, this game theory trap where stewards are guarding what we have so that pharma doesn't want to make anything new is both pointless and self-perpeuating, because we will never reach the point where we realize we've beaten resistance.