LIKE IT OR NOT

Economics are hard to ignore.

Super bugs are all the rage today and not in a good way.

Regulators can take the medicines out of the market, but despite what people think, it will be extremely difficult to take the economics out of the medicines.

Despite the potential of new antibacterial products to reduce the social burden associated with resistant infections, some of the large companies have been exiting the markets for antibacterial drugs and vaccines in recent years. Arguably these pharmaceutical corporations have also failed to respond to the possible social value of opportunities in production of rapid diagnostic products.

These market exits have been driven by the most basic of reasons: insufficient return to capital invested in development of these products (that is, there are not enough profits to be made). Consequently, governments across the globe are looking to identify ways to stimulate the development of antibacterial products.

There is economics here you might want to know about. According to this report, there were 23,000 deaths in 2013 with at least some connection to antimicrobial resistance. Drugs are like oil--in fact many of them come from oil products--if production costs exceed profits, it will remain untapped.

The same goes for science, like it or not. 

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/science/op-ed-new-usa-body-to-evaluate-antimicrobial-products/article/395973