Development of antimicrobials

Kaiser Health News published an interesting discussion about the development of antimicrobial medications. The crux of the problem is that while new drugs can be effective against microbes, microbes can quickly develop resistance to the drugs. Consequently, hospitals try to reserve use of the new antibiotics for cases where older medications have proven ineffective. Making these new medications the last resort means that pharmaceutical companies will sell fewer of them, and therefore have less financial incentive to develop new ones. The status quo might be fine for a while, but if older medications lose their effectiveness altogether, society could be very vulnerable without newer medications to treat the microbes that have developed resistance against older antibiotics.

This scenario seems to hold some parallels with pandemic preparedness. It seems that at least some members of Congress understand the potential risks and are allocating some funds to encourage development of new antibiotics, even if they might not sell in high volume.