There’s a growing threat that could kill 10 million people a year by 2050
To fight antibiotic resistance, more and more new drugs have to be produced to stay ahead of the curve
- Antibiotic resistance has become a growing threat around the world, and is expected to kill 10 million people annually by 2050
- There’s a misconception about how resistance develops — it develops in microbes, not individual people, meaning even if you don’t use antibiotics you’re still susceptible to coming across a drug-resistant bug
- Nabriva Therapeutics CEO says that because of that confusion, we’re ignoring the problem, similar to how people ignore global climate change.
Most of us have encountered an antibiotic at some point in our lives — either to treat an ear infection, combat a round of strep throat, or treat a pesky cough.
But, as antibiotic resistance continues to be a growing problem around the world, it’s often hard to make the connection between drug-resistant bacteria and ourselves.
“When you get resistance for a common infection, it’s a big problem, which we’re sort of ignoring a bit like global warming,” Dr. Colin Broom, CEO of Nabriva Therapeutics, a biotech developing a new antibiotic to treat community acquired bacterial pneumonia. The drug, called lefamulin, is currently in phase three trials, with some results coming later this year.
Antibiotic resistance is expected to kill 10 million people annually by 2050. And it hasn’t been easy to get new drugs to stay ahead of the problem. Over the years, many major pharmaceutical companies have stopped developing new antibiotics, and those that are still in development have faced a number of stumbling blocks toward approval.