Some 23 global companies, including Novartis, will create a fund to develop new antibiotics against resistant bacteria.
The antibiotics discovered could be marketed by the 23 companies involved in the fund, including Novartis.
AFP
About twenty global pharmaceutical groups announced Thursday the creation of a fund of 1 billion dollars (900 million francs) to finance research against bacteria resistant to antibiotics. These bacteria are responsible for tens of thousands of deaths worldwide each year. “The aim of this partnership is to bring 2-4 new antibiotics to patients by the end of the decade,” said the world federation for the sector, IFPMA, which developed this project.
Among the 23 companies participating in the program are global giants in the sector, such as Bayer, Merck, Novartis and Pfizer. It will finance antibiotic projects “directed at the most resistant and deadliest bacteria”, carried out by “small biotech companies”.
The antibiotics discovered “may be marketed by these companies or in partnership with one of the participating groups,” said IFPMA Director General Thomas Cueni.
Growing threat
Resistance of bacteria to commercially available antibiotics, or antibiotic resistance, is seen as a growing threat to global public health. It has been favored, during the last decades, by the massive use of these drugs for humans, but also for farm animals, which has developed the adaptation of bacteria, making them insensitive to drugs.
The search for new molecules capable of replacing those that have become ineffective is skating because it is too expensive and unprofitable for manufacturers. In early January, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned of a “threat that has never been so immediate”.
Nearly 33,000 people die every year in Europe from antibiotic-resistant infection, according to European data, while in the United States, deaths are estimated at nearly 35,000. These bacteria could kill up to 10 million people a year by 2050, as much as cancer, according to a British study.
(AFP/NXP)
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