“Public-private partnerships have adopted business models that exploit the venture capital approach to investment in new product R&D…The commitment of U.S. public dollars for these and similar initiatives would take advantage of the entrepreneurial spirit possessed by many researchers and humanitarians.”
- IDSA Report: “Bad Bugs, No Drugs”
Identifying a decade-long trend, the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) warned in a July 2004 report, "Bad Bugs, No Drugs: As Antibiotic R&D Stagnates A Public Health Crisis Brews," that a thinning pipeline of antibiotics costs the US economy $5 billion annually and will produce a worrying public health crisis.
A shrinking arsenal of tools can no longer effectively combat a growing pool of dangerous resistant bacteria, such as MDR-TB. The report points out that of 506 chemical agents in development, only 5 are new antibiotics, a statistic that reflects the larger profit margin from chronic and lifestyle drugs.
The report outlines a series of concrete public policy recommendations to bolster the work of leading federal agencies and highlights the role of synergistic public-private partnerships undertaking product development, including the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, that “offer promising opportunities to advance product R&D in areas that have languished in the past."
Additionally, IDSA calls for U.S. public funding of these partnerships and recommends that policy makers “seriously consider ways to prompt companies to inventory their shelves for promising drug candidates that could be donated to the partnerships for development.”
IDSA Report Recommendations and Conlusions
(in brief):
- Millions of people each year acquire infections that are resistant to an increasing number of existing antibiotics, posing a serious threat to public health and substantial economic losses for the U.S. of $5 billion annually.
- To develop badly-needed new drugs, Congress must enact legislation and fund measures that will revive the stagnated pipeline for antibiotics. In addition to outlining specific program strategies within each relevant agency, IDSA recommends that Congress:
- increase the CDC’s antimicrobial resistance budget by $150 million by 2009
- augment FDA funding by $25 million for antibiotic development programs in 2005
- raise NIH funding by 10% in 2005, to accelerate R&D for new antibiotics.
- Support innovative approaches to antibiotic R&D, including public-private partnerships such as the TB Alliance. These mechanisms are likely to yield results quickly and effectively, as they utilize their pioneering business models to capitalize on the best practices of both sectors. Through intense collaboration, these partnerships leverage resources from various sources to produce products that benefit public health.