What is the Current State of the Antimicrobial Pipeline?

John Mohr, PharmD, president and founder of Medical Affairs Strategic Solutions, LLC, explains the current state of the antimicrobial pipeline.

Interview Transcript (slightly modified for readability)

“For over the past 30 years, the antimicrobial pipeline has been declining; however, most recently there have been slight improvements in the number of antibiotics that have come to the market. The majority of the antibiotic classes that we have available today were all discovered before 1960. There have only been two novel classes of antibiotics developed in the past 30 years.

In 2010, the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) called for 10 new antibiotics to be developed by the year 2020, and there have currently been five new antibiotics. However, the majority of those have been for the treatment of gram-positive infections. What we still need is more antibiotics for the management of patients with infections caused by gram-negative bacteria.”