World Health Organisation (WHO) in its latest report titled Antibacterial agents in clinical development – an analysis of the antibacterial clinical development pipeline, including tuberculosis have warned that there are very few new antibiotics under development.
Of the 51 new antibiotics and biologicals under clinical development, only 8 are classed by WHO as innovative treatments that will add value to the current antibiotic treatment arsenal, the report says.
"Pharmaceutical companies and researchers must urgently focus on new antibiotics against certain types of extremely serious infections that can kill patients in a matter of days because we have no line of defence," says Dr Suzanne Hill, Director of the Department of Essential Medicines at WHO.
As a measure to contain the threat, WHO and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) have established the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (known as GARDP) which has received about €56 million in pledge from Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, South Africa, Switzerland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Wellcome Trust.
The full report can be read here
