Pharmaceutical Industry at the Crossroads: Perspectives for Antibacterial Research

Abstract

There is an urgent need for new antibiotics. New antibiotics means new classes of drugs with new modes of action in order to avoid cross-resistance with drugs that are already commercially available. This, in turn, implies the detection of new targets. The need is due mainly to the emergence of “new”, often multiresistant, bacterial pathogens and to the high prevalence of antibiotic resistance. It is highly predictable that resistance will increase and disseminate even further. In addition, “new” resistances are likely to emerge. The bacteria have realized that it is more important to be (multi) resistant than to be (highly) pathogenic. Another consequence of this deterioration is that the new antibiotics have to be bactericidal; combinations can rarely be used against multiresistant clinical isolates, since most often one of the components is inactive.