2016/09/29 by Prabhavathi Fernandes, Evan Martens · 3 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Immunology and Microbiology · Environmental Science · #Antibiotic Resistance in Bacteria #Antibiotic Use and Resistance #Pharmaceutical and Antibiotic Environmental Impacts
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.bcp.2016.09.025
openalex publication_date 2016/09/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/02
Most pharmaceutical companies have stopped or have severely limited investments to discover and develop new antibiotics to treat the increasing prevalence of infections caused by multi-drug resistant bacteria, because the return on investment has been mostly negative for antibiotics that received marketing approved in the last few decades. In contrast, a few small companies have taken on this challenge and are developing new antibiotics. This review describes those antibiotics in late-stage clinical development. Most of them belong to existing antibiotic classes and a few with a narrow spectrum of activity are novel compounds directed against novel targets. The reasons for some of the past failures to find new molecules and a path forward to help attract investments to fund discovery of new antibiotics are described.