UK experts urge $2B global fund to develop antibiotics
The global pharmaceutical industry is being called on to pay for an innovation fund to revitalise research into antibiotics. Drug-resistant microbes could kill 10 million people a year, a study says
Experts say the global pharmaceutical industry should set up a $2 billion global innovation fund to help kick start research into developing more resistant antibiotics, according to Agence France Presse.
The report was by the British government-appointed Review on Antimicrobial Resistance committee, which has warned that drug-resistant microbes could kill 10 million people a year worldwide by 2050.
"We need to kick start drug development to make sure the world has the drugs it needs," the review's author, economist Jim O'Neill, told the BBC.
O'Neill, former chair of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, has also warned that antimicrobial resistance - when bugs become immune to existing drugs - could cost $100 trillion in lost economic output.
Speaking on the BBC Panorama program, he said big pharma should act with "enlightened self-interest."
"If it gets really bad, somebody is going to come gunning for these guys just how people came gunning for finance" during the 2008 global financial crisis, he said. He said a fund with $2 billion over five years would give a vital boost to research and development for universities and small biotech companies.
The report said that one potential direction was the development of "resistance breakers" that could boost the effectiveness of existing antibiotics without the additional cost of developing new ones. With $2 billion over five years, the fund could prioritize payment to universities and small biotech companies and break the link between the profitability of the drug and the volume of sales.
"Too many good ideas are not being pursued due to lack of funding," the report said. O'Neill was appointed by Prime Minister David Cameron last year.
The World Health Organization (WHO) last month warned that the world was doing far too little to combat the misuse of antibiotics, which is fuelling drug resistance and allowing treatable diseases to become killers.
In its first ever analysis of how countries are responding to the problem of antimicrobial resistance, the U.N. health agency revealed "major gaps" in all six regions of the world. "This is the single greatest challenge in infectious diseases today," Keiji Fukuda, WHO's assistant director general for health security, said in a statement.
Meanwhile, speaking to Anadolu Agency, O'Neill called on Turkey to put antibiotics development on the G20's agenda during its G20 presidency in 2015. O'Neill was appointed in 2014 by Cameron, who was recently re-elected, to research ways to look for ways to reverse the rising tide of drug-resistant microbes. "Perhaps if we would've started a year earlier, I may have suggested that Turkey should put it as a priority for Turkey's G20 leadership. But we only started very late last year, when I'm guessing a lot of the thinking had already been done. But if Turkey could influence this, it would be pretty good to have it on the Turkish agenda too," O'Neill said.
"Next year China is going to host the G20. China is already the second most important economy in the world. Many people think it is on the way to becoming the biggest," he said. O'Neill is famous as an economist for having invented the economic term BRICs - Brazil, Russia, India and China - and MINTs -Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey.
The report was by the British government-appointed Review on Antimicrobial Resistance committee, which has warned that drug-resistant microbes could kill 10 million people a year worldwide by 2050.
"We need to kick start drug development to make sure the world has the drugs it needs," the review's author, economist Jim O'Neill, told the BBC.
O'Neill, former chair of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, has also warned that antimicrobial resistance - when bugs become immune to existing drugs - could cost $100 trillion in lost economic output.
Speaking on the BBC Panorama program, he said big pharma should act with "enlightened self-interest."
"If it gets really bad, somebody is going to come gunning for these guys just how people came gunning for finance" during the 2008 global financial crisis, he said. He said a fund with $2 billion over five years would give a vital boost to research and development for universities and small biotech companies.
The report said that one potential direction was the development of "resistance breakers" that could boost the effectiveness of existing antibiotics without the additional cost of developing new ones. With $2 billion over five years, the fund could prioritize payment to universities and small biotech companies and break the link between the profitability of the drug and the volume of sales.
"Too many good ideas are not being pursued due to lack of funding," the report said. O'Neill was appointed by Prime Minister David Cameron last year.
The World Health Organization (WHO) last month warned that the world was doing far too little to combat the misuse of antibiotics, which is fuelling drug resistance and allowing treatable diseases to become killers.
In its first ever analysis of how countries are responding to the problem of antimicrobial resistance, the U.N. health agency revealed "major gaps" in all six regions of the world. "This is the single greatest challenge in infectious diseases today," Keiji Fukuda, WHO's assistant director general for health security, said in a statement.
Meanwhile, speaking to Anadolu Agency, O'Neill called on Turkey to put antibiotics development on the G20's agenda during its G20 presidency in 2015. O'Neill was appointed in 2014 by Cameron, who was recently re-elected, to research ways to look for ways to reverse the rising tide of drug-resistant microbes. "Perhaps if we would've started a year earlier, I may have suggested that Turkey should put it as a priority for Turkey's G20 leadership. But we only started very late last year, when I'm guessing a lot of the thinking had already been done. But if Turkey could influence this, it would be pretty good to have it on the Turkish agenda too," O'Neill said.
"Next year China is going to host the G20. China is already the second most important economy in the world. Many people think it is on the way to becoming the biggest," he said. O'Neill is famous as an economist for having invented the economic term BRICs - Brazil, Russia, India and China - and MINTs -Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey.
Last Update: May 15, 2015 20:56