Neil Hawkins at Dow Chemical tweeted me a link to this piece in the New York Times this morning:
A Dearth in Innovation for Key Drugs (Eduardo Porter)
There is clearly something wrong with pharmaceutical innovation. Antibiotic-resistant infections sicken more than two million Americans every year and kill at least 23,000. The World Health Organization has warned that a “post-antibiotic era” may be upon us, when “common infections and minor injuries can kill.” More …
The article highlights an important and rather urgent need for innovation in antibiotics, together with changes in the mechanisms and drivers that will enable this.
What the article doesn’t do is mention a recent UK innovation in this space: the $10 million Longitude Prize supported by the British Government and the Innovation charity Nesta that addresses antibiotic resistance.
$10 million isn’t a great deal of money to tackle such a large challenge. But true to their mission, Nesta’s approach is far more innovative than trying to repeat what has worked in the past with antibiotics.
Instead of creating new anitbiotics, their challenge was
to create a cost-effective, accurate, rapid and easy-to-use test for bacterial infections that will allow health professionals worldwide to administer the right antibiotics at the right time
What also sets this initiative apart is that it was voted on by the British public.
The New York Times has it right – antibiotic resistance is a looming crisis. But as the Longitude Prize shows, new solutions may also require stepping away from old thinking.