A key area of medical research in recent years has been to find drugs that can beat back antibiotic-resistant superbugs, something that may be about to bear fruit in the form of two new medications set to be used in England.
The National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has said antibacterials cefiderocol and ceftazidime–avibactam could become the first drugs to be accredited for use under a new subscription-style payment model, where the makers will get a fixed annual fee to cover development costs instead of payments per drug used.
This is a model adopted by the government with the aim of incentivising companies to develop vital drugs to help with rare but potentially deadly problems such as superbug infection, rather than just focusing on more profitable medications.
NICE observed that “the lack of new antimicrobials being developed and the growing threat posed by antimicrobial resistance” is a problem that up until now has had little research. It noted that in 2020, only 41 anti-antimicrobial drugs went through clinical trials, compared with around 1,800 immuno-oncology treatments.
The development of such drugs will be vital to prevent a scenario in which many forms of invasive surgery and other treatments where antibiotics are commonly used would become unsafe, due to the high risk of bugs that have evolved immunity to them.
NHS commercial medicines director Blake Dark commented: “This is an important step in our world-leading approach to incentivise innovation in antimicrobial drugs and the battle against drug-resistant infections.”
In January 2020, the World Health Organization listed the issue of antibiotic resistance among its 13 health challenges of the decade.
The body said a combination of factors such as the unregulated use of antibiotics, poor hygiene and a lack of access to affordable high quality medicines has created a “terrifying brew” that threatens to take humanity back to a pre-antibiotics age.
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