The Race to Stay Ahead

The pipeline for new antibiotics is dangerously thin. Developing a new antibiotic costs over $1 billion, but unlike heart or cancer drugs taken for years, antibiotics are used for only days. The financial return is so poor that most pharmaceutical companies have largely abandoned the field.

The WHO now ranks antimicrobial resistance among the top ten global health threats. Without new treatments, projections suggest resistant infections could kill as many as 10 million people a year by 2050.