Overview

Novel antibiotics are desperately needed to combat progressively resistant strains of bacteria, but there are too few innovative antibiotics in the clinical pipeline because of ongoing scientific, regulatory and economic challenges inherent to the antibiotics market. Global and national antibiotic incentive programmes are making progress in revitalising the pipeline but there are gaps in the incentivisation agenda. The pipeline could be improved by increasing funding of clinical trials to help drugs reach market approval, creating a market entry reward programme to facilitate commercialisation, and supporting coordinated international and national action on repairing the antibiotic pipeline and market.