At a time when big pharma is shying away from research and development on new antibiotics, it is the small and medium scale biopharmaceutical companies that have taken up the cudgels for filling this gap.
But these companies are faced with enormous challenges of their own. Until these challenges are addressed and overcome, the world will continue to be in a dire predicament in which it will see its basket of life-saving antibiotics rapidly becoming smaller and smaller.
This emerged from the deliberations at a global webinar organised on August 24 by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). This was the second webinar in a series being conducted by CSE to discuss the crisis in antibiotic research and development.
In her opening speech in the webinar, CSE director general Sunita Narain said: “We need to conserve the antibiotics that we have, but we also need new antibiotics to treat deadly resistant infections. While the big pharmaceutical companies are no longer keen, it’s the small and medium scale companies which have taken up the responsibility. They have a huge task at hand and a lot depends on how they are supported.”
Narain is a member of the Global Leader’s Group on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). Antibiotic resistance is a silent pandemic. Antibiotics are becoming ineffective and treatment options are reducing — impacting health, livelihoods and economies. Worldwide, in 2019, about five million deaths were associated with it.
The webinar series is based on a CSE assessment – ‘A Developing Crisis’, — published in Down To Earth (July 16-31). The assessment had showed how the global antibiotic pipeline is weak across the pre-clinical and clinical development stages.
Analysis of the clinical pipeline of 15 high-earning pharmaceutical companies to understand their R&D focus showed that most big pharmaceutical companies have all but quit the R&D of new antibiotics. It is the small and medium scale pharmaceutical companies have taken up the responsibility, but they are facing challenges.
“Indian small and medium antibiotic developers are facing multiple challenges. They can play an important role in rejuvenating the global pipeline, if their concerns are addressed,” said Amit Khurana from CSE.
The antibiotic developers who spoke at the webinar clearly highlighted their challenges related to scientific, financial and regulatory aspects of drug development.
CSE researchers, in their assessment, had called for critical reforms to stimulate the antibiotic R&D ecosystem for a sustainable and equitable antibiotic access.
There is a need for greater public financing, a coordinated response from national governments and striking the right balance in public-private partnership for antibiotic development. They had highlighted that antibiotics have attributes of a ‘global public good’ despite not fitting into the strictest definition.
