Drug-resistant bacteria impose an economic burden on healthcare systems around the world – in the order of billions of dollars annually. Infections with multidrug-resistant bacteria are much more expensive to treat than non-resistant infections because of longer hospitalisations, extra physician visits, higher costs of alternative antibiotics, more post-hospital care, lost work days, and deaths.

Estimates for the additional costs of drug-resistant infections vary widely, but studies have shown additional costs of more than $20,000 per patient infection and over $2.5 million in one year in just one hospital. Prevention has been shown to be particularly cost effective. In a neonatal Intensive Care Unit, costs of prevention were calculated to be 19-27 time less than the cost of treating infections. In another study, a modest 32% reduction in healthcare-associated infections in a medium-sized hospital, would provide a net saving of $1.6 million.

In addition to the economic cost, there is a huge personal burden on patients and their families. Those at most risk (the elderly, the immune compromised and children) can suffer appalling morbidity and ultimately mortality as a result of these infections.

Destiny is committed to developing new medicines that can protect individuals from contracting infections caused by drug-resistant microbes, and can treat them if they do. A totally new drug class with a unique mechanism of action, the XF series of compounds offer the promise of a valuable new approach in the ongoing battle between humans and microbes.