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 The range of antimicrobial medicines able to kill the growing number
of drug-resistant infections is dwindling and health experts warn
that within a generation the death toll from such "superbug"
infections could reach 10 billion.
Announcing its first funding, a new U.S.-U.K. alliance known as CARB-X,
short for Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical
Accelerator, said it would invest an initial $24 million in 11
biotech companies pursing various projects to develop antibiotics
and diagnostic. Another $24 million will be given in staged payments
over three years as projects progress.
Added to private funds from the companies, the CARB-X funding could
lead to an investment of more than $75 million in projects that show
success, it said in a statement. Britain's Wellcome Trust global
health charity is committing 125 million pounds ($155.5 million)
over five years.
Public health specialists have been warning for years that the world
is facing an urgent global health threat from antibiotic-resistant
superbug bacteria and that the pipeline of novel therapies to treat
them is precariously thin.
Drug-resistant infections kill 700,000 people a year worldwide, and
the last new antibiotic class to be approved for market was
discovered in 1984.
With CARB-X funds, three of the 11 projects are working on potential
new classes of antibiotics, while four are exploring new ways of
targeting and killing bacteria.
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Tim Jinks, head of drug resistant infection at the Wellcome Trust,
said antibiotic resistance is already "a huge global health
challenge" and is getting worse. "Without effective drugs, doctors
cannot treat patients," he said in a statement.
Kevin Outterson, CARB-X's executive director and a professor of law
at Boston University in the United States, added: "By accelerating
promising research, it is our hope that we can speed up the delivery
of new effective antibacterials, vaccines, devices and rapid
diagnostics to patients who need them."
(Editing by Alexander Smith)
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