Superbugs : The Race to Stop an Epidemic

bacteria were mutating so fast that even the most spectacular new products couldn’t keep up

these companies are accountable to shareholders, not patients

For antibacterial drugs, the NPV is approximately $42 million; for most other products—including muscular and neurologic drugs—the number is closer to $1 billion.

This is the sum of all investment costs in research and development as well as expected future revenues.

net present value (NPV)

With an antibiotic, however, the profit margins are narrow because of three characteristics: they’re usually given in short courses, they’re prescribed only when someone is sick, and sooner or later even that terrific new antibiotic is going to develop drug resistance.

Many companies simply gave up looking for antibiotics, and that has led to the troubling situation we find ourselves in today.

The problem, ultimately, is that many antibiotics are not very profitable.

decade after the first bacterial genome was sequenced, not a single drug in development was derived from that approach.

Between 1995 and 2001, nearly a half million compounds were screened by GSK scientists. But only five emerged as genuine leads—and none were useful in humans.