"There's an arms race going on, Sen. Richard Blumenthal said Monday, and we're losing.
"We're in an arms race with pathogens that are evolving faster than we are developing drugs to treat them," the Connecticut Democrat said during a press conference at Hartford Hospital.
He was there to tout his support for a measure aimed at encouraging drug makers to develop new antibiotics that can combat drug-resistant bacteria. The GAIN Act--Generating Antibiotic Incentives Now--would extend the patent on antibiotics by five years, giving drug companies more time to exclusively market the medications they develop. It would also give qualifying drugs priority review by the Food and Drug Administration, and would allow pharmaceutical companies to seek guidance from the FDA sooner in designing clinical trials.
Sharon Ladin, director of the Pew Health Group's antibiotics and innovation project, noted that between 1935 and 1968, there were 13 new classes of antibiotics brought to market, each of which attacked bacteria in a unique way. Since 1968, as bacteria have continued to evolve, only two classes of antibiotics have been introduced and developed.
There are three main challenges to innovation in antibiotics, Ladin said. They're expensive and difficult to develop, and because they are usually prescribed for short courses, antibiotics tend produce lower revenues than drugs that treat chronic conditions like high cholesterol or high blood pressure."
Nearly a year after the enactment of the Generating Antibiotic Incentives Now Act, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has released draft guidance for industry on developing antibacterial therapies for patients with unmet medical needs.
More infoAs multidrug-resistant infections have grown more prevalent, few new antibiotics are reaching the market. This is attributed, in part, to the economic and regulatory challenges associated with their development. Recently, stakeholders have endorsed a novel regulatory pathway to approve these lifesaving drugs for use in limited patient populations — namely those at highest risk and with few or no other options.
More info"As a nation, we need to exercise greater care with our use of antibiotics, in both humans and animals, so that these medications remain effective in treating serious bacterial infections."
More infoNearly nine in 10 Americans recognize that antibiotics are effective treatments for fighting bacterial infections like strep throat, but more than a third mistakenly believe the drugs are also appropriate treatments for viral infections such as the common cold. Test your antibiotics IQ and take the quiz.
More info"And a new survey out today from the Pew Charitable Trusts and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows 79% of adults know they can harm their own health by taking unneeded antibiotics."
More info''Americans are not as smart about antibiotics and antibiotic resistance as they should be, a new poll shows. For instance, although almost 90 percent of Americans know that antibiotics are effective for treating bacterial infections, more than a third also erroneously believed the drugs can fight viral infections such as the common cold or the flu."
More infoNearly nine in 10 Americans recognize that antibiotics are effective treatments for fighting bacterial infections like strep throat, but more than a third mistakenly believe the drugs are also appropriate treatments for viral infections such as the common cold.
More infoFollowing the deadly superbug outbreak in 2011, a recent report published by the NIH indicates new antibiotics could help fight antibiotic resistant bacteria. Senior Officer of Pew's Antibiotics and Innovation Project Nicole Mahoney discusses the new report and the need for a comprehensive strategy to prevent superbug outbreaks.
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"One of the most urgent global public health problems is the increasing capability of bacteria to resist antibiotic drugs. The crisis of antimicrobial resistance is particularly acute in hospitals, where superbugs able to resist multiple drugs have spawned. More than 70 percent of the bacteria that cause hospital-related infections are already resistant to at least one type of antibacterial drug."
More info"As doctors battled a deadly, drug-resistant superbug last year, they turned to an antibiotic of last resort. But colistin, as it’s called, was discovered in 1949. Between 1945 and 1968, drug companies invented 13 new categories of antibiotics, said Allan Coukell, director of medical programs at the Pew Health Group. Between 1968 and today, just two new categories of antibiotics have arrived."
More info''The menace posed by germs resistant to powerful antibiotics was all too apparent when a deadly, drug-resistant form of pneumonia bacteria struck the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health last year. It infected 17 patients and killed 6 of them. This disheartening episode shows again the importance of slowing the development of resistant strains by reducing rampant overuse of antibiotics — and of developing new, more effective antibiotics."
More infoOn August 22, researchers at the National Institute of Health released a scientific paper detailing the use of advanced genetic technology to trace a deadly infection, untreatable by nearly every antibiotic, that spread through the NIH’s Clinical Center last year.
More infoCopyright(c) 1996-2012 The Pew Charitable Trusts. All Rights Reserved.
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