A public-private partnership known as CARB-X plans to devote more than $350 million over five years “to one of the trickiest aspects of the problem of drug resistance: Encouraging pharmaceutical companies to make new antibiotics,” says National Geographic. Antibiotics are expensive to develop but often a low-revenue product, so there is little research at a time bacterial resistance is an increasing threat to medicine.
CARB-X, formally named Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator, is a joint project of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, the Antimicrobial Resistance Centre (AMR Centre), Boston University Law School and the Wellcome Trust. The HHS and AMR Centre are the major funders. CARB-X will focus on small biotech firms and offer funding and help in the logistics of carrying a new antimicrobial from research to the marketplace.
An HHS official says that if new companies get support during their early lab work, “we can create an environment where private sector investment is increased at later stages of development.” CARB-X plans to get two new compounds into human trials within five years.
Meanwhile, German researchers discovered, in the human nose, a new type of antibiotic capable of killing “superbug” bacteria that is resistant to powerful antibiotics, said the Indpendent. It would be the first new antibiotic since the 1980s if it passes trials of its safety and efficacy. The drug, named lugdunin, has been tested in mice and gave no sign of allowing its target bacteria to develop resistance.