The pipeline of drugs to combat superbugs remains “worryingly short” and has shrunk by 35% in the past five years, experts have warned, predicting that the annual number of deaths linked to drug-resistant infections worldwide will double to 8 million by 2050.
The number of projects by large pharmaceutical companies has fallen by 35% in the last five years, from 92 to 60 drugs in development, according to a report by the Access to Medicine Foundation (AMF), a non-profit group based in the Netherlands, and the Wellcome Trust.
“Overall, however, the R&D pipeline remains worryingly thin and industrial investment has lost momentum,” said Jayasree K Iyer, executive director, AMF. He described drug resistance as the biggest threat to healthcare worldwide.
More than 1 million people die each year directly from drug-resistant infections, but they contribute to 4 million deaths annually worldwide. Both numbers are forecast to double by 2050, to nearly 2 million and more than 8 million respectively.
The UK’s GSK is leading the way in antimicrobial resistance research and development (R&D) with 30 projects and is one of three big pharma companies continuing to invest in this area, according to the report.
The other two big players are the Japanese Shionogi and Otsuka, while the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer, which first joined GSK in 2021, has retreated.
The largest British pharmaceutical company, AstraZeneca, is not included in the ranking because it does not have an antibiotic portfolio, as infectious diseases have never been its focus. The report evaluates the efforts of 25 companies, including seven large research firms, 10 generic drug makers and eight smaller drug or biotech developers.
Iyer said three recently approved antibiotics and seven other promising drugs in late-stage development showed that “it is possible to tilt the battle against superbugs in humanity’s favor.”
In December, the US health regulator approved California biotech Innoviva’s zoliflodacin (branded as Nuzolvence) to treat gonorrhea, as well as GSK’s gepotidacin (sold as Blujepa) for uncomplicated urinary tract infections and urogenital gonorrhea. They are the first antibiotics developed to treat these diseases in decades.
People in low- and middle-income countries, where infectious diseases hit hardest, are most vulnerable to drug-resistant superbugs. “There is no time to lose,” said the AMF.
Hospitals around the world have seen an alarming rise in common antibiotic-resistant infections. One in six laboratory-confirmed bacterial infections was resistant to antibiotic treatments in 2023, and more than 40% of antibiotics lost potency against common blood, intestine, urinary tract, and sexually transmitted infections between 2018 and 2023, according to the World Health Organization.
