29 Jan 2018 – $1bn rewards proposed at Davos 2018 for new antibiotics

A high-profile consortium, DRIVE-AB, has published a study in the wake of this announcement recommending broad incentives to promote antibiotic innovation and the sustainable use of the resulting, novel antibiotics to combat antibiotic resistance.

Neil Clark, Chief Executive Officer of Destiny Pharma, commented: “Antibiotic resistance is a major global concern and DRIVE-AB’s study outlines additional support that is needed to assist drug companies in combating this issue. These incentives aim to expand the number of companies such as Destiny Pharma operating in this area and to support the expansion of the development of new treatments.”

The study, titled Revitalizing the Antibiotic Pipeline: Stimulating Innovation while Driving Sustainable Use and Global Access, was produced by an international group made up of 23 partners from big pharma, academic institutions and public health organisations. The complementary measures laid out in the study cover 30 incentives on how to drive antibiotic innovation. Three primary solutions include:

• Market entry reward for truly innovative antibiotics: A $1 billion reward per antibiotic globally, in addition to sales revenue, could quadruple novel antibiotics over 30 years
• Maximised antibiotic R&D environment: An increase of $300 million, or approximately 50%, in government grant funding and R&D coordinators are need to foster collaboration and fundamental research
• Long term governance: The G20, through their recently announced Global R&D Collaboration Hub, should implement a focused investment strategy and facilities the above two points