Under the great reward, there must be Yongfu AstraZeneca returning to the field of antibiotic research and development

Source: Biovalley 2015-09-21 September 21, 2015, the history of human medical development is almost the history of fighting against viruses and bacteria All kinds of major epidemics in history are almost related to this After the advent of penicillin in the last century, the rapid development of antibiotic drugs, some people even think that the ultimate victory of mankind is not far away However, contrary to our wishes, with the development of antibiotics, more and more drug-resistant bacteria have come into the sight of human beings In the end, there is even a dilemma that the R & D efficiency of new antibiotics is far behind that of antibiotic resistant bacteria Therefore, more and more biomedical companies gradually withdraw from the field of antibiotic research and development Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca is one of them AstraZeneca's decision 18 months ago to close its early antibiotic research and development department has attracted widespread attention Now, with $220 million in funding from biological advanced research and Development Authority (BARDA), the British pharmaceutical giant has decided to return to the field According to the agreement between BARDA and AstraZeneca, BARDA will first pay US $50 million to AstraZeneca, and the remaining US $170 million will be in place in the next five years During this period, AstraZeneca will start a series of new antibiotic research represented by aztreonam / avibactam combination therapy As mentioned before, too high R & D costs and limited application scope make many pharmaceutical companies shy away from antibiotic research However, the threat of drug-resistant bacteria makes many antibiotics on the market lose efficacy rapidly In order to solve this serious problem, BARDA has made a series of ambitious plans to encourage more biomedical enterprises to enter this field Robin Robinson, President of BARDA, said that in order to solve the increasingly serious problem of drug resistance, BARDA will strive to promote cooperation between government departments and biomedical companies In fact, the shortage of antibiotics has also attracted the attention of relevant departments around the world, and they have formulated their own preferential policies In recent years, these policies have achieved initial results, and some biomedical companies have returned to this field Prior to that, both mosadon and Roche have restarted the research of new antibiotic drug project However, according to Biovalley, the development of new antibiotics is only one aspect of the solution To solve the problem of antibiotic abuse is another effective way to cure the disease.