> "Why isn't it economically feasible to create new drugs for them? " It's not that you couldn't make a profit off them. It's that the opportunity costs can't

> "Why isn't it economically feasible to create new drugs for them? " It's not that you couldn't make a profit off them. It's that the opportunity costs can't be justified (today). There's a finite amount of R&D funds available to any firm. And if I'm maximizing profit, I'm not going to spend my money on difficult research, seeking and developing a drug useful to a handful of patients in 4% of hospitals, that's taken for a few weeks by each patient. Not if I can instead spend it tweaking known drugs, useful to 30-50% of the entire population, that they'll take for the rest of their lives. (e.g. blood pressure medicine) And particularly not when CDC, WHO, et al are actively campaigning for changes to antibiotic handling/prescription/use which may well mean your potential future market for "a better antibiotic" is actually smaller than today's.