A report released by the Access to Medicine Foundation shines a light on just how small the pipeline and discovery programs aimed at superbugs are.
Last year the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report that showed 35,000 Americans die annually from drug-resistant infections. Globally that number is about 700,000 people. And that death toll could grow as more bacteria become resistant to antibiotics.
Despite that growing concern, there are only a few pharmaceutical companies that have focused their resources on addressing this growing concern. A report released by the Access to Medicine Foundation shines a light on just how small the pipeline and discovery programs aimed at superbugs are. The report, “Antimicrobial Resistance Benchmark,” shows that 13 companies are aiming some of their research toward this growing problem. That number is up from nine companies in 2018, but the group said that’s still too small a number. The organization said the issue for companies is that antibiotics are not moneymakers. Most companies are focusing their research on drugs that will generate significant revenues, such as treatments for cancer and rare diseases.
Some of the leaders in the antimicrobial research field include GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Entasis Therapeutics and Cipla Ltd. According to the Los Angeles Times, the report, which was released Tuesday at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, says there are only 51 drug candidates in advanced development that can treat bacterial and fungal infections. Of those, only a few are “truly novel,” the Times reported. Many of the projects will not make it into clinical testing and even fewer through human trials.
The Times noted that a report released last week by the AMR Industry Alliance shows a significant decrease in funding aimed at targeting superbugs. The Times said funding from 15 companies fell from $1.9billion in 2016 to $1.2 billion in 2018. The report, the Times said, “raises concern about a shortfall in late-stage spending in particular.”
With a plethora of rising superbug reports, healthcare officials worry about the growing death toll, which has been predicted at 10 million people across the globe by 2050, the Times said. Over the past few years, there have been multiple stories about the rise of drug-resistant pathogens. Recently, a dangerous fungal infection known as Candida auris reared its head in a New York hospital. The facility had to tear out part of the room a patient was housed in due to the spread of the fungal infection, which can be fatal. With growing concerns about the rise of drug-resistant bacteria, multiple companies are developing new forms of antimicrobials to take on serious health concerns, such as carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae, Clostridium difficile, better known as C. diff, or Staphylococcus infections.
But the number of companies working in this area remains small, the report shows. It is likely though that new research pathways could open up, or significant grant packages from world governments will entice some companies to dig into the space and develop potential treatments. Seed Health CEO Raja Dhir told BioSpace last month that to combat the threat of bacterial diseases, the biotechnology industry will likely pivot towards developing live biotherapeutics – living microorganisms designed to help bodies prevent and fight disease.
“As antibiotics become increasingly outgunned in the war against infection, scientists will start to look at how to enlist our resident bacteria and their complex toolkit as allies in the fight,” Dhir said in a statement to BioSpace.
