https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191007130957.htm

In a study published today in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology, investigators used nationwide prescription data to determine that the current annual U.S. sales of new antibiotics to treat carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), one of the world's most insidious drug-resistant bacteria, is about $101 million annually -- significantly short of the $1 billion believed to be necessary to assure the financial viability of a new antibiotic. Even if new anti-CRE agents were used as widely as possible to treat CRE infections, the projected market size is only $289 million.

"New drugs against CRE address a major, previously unmet medical need and are critical to save lives. If the market can't support them, then that is a chilling commentary on the future of antibiotic development," said lead author Cornelius J. Clancy, M.D., associate professor of medicine and director of the mycology program and Extensively Drug Resistant Pathogen Laboratory in Pitt's Division of Infectious Diseases. "Without antibiotics against increasingly resistant bacteria and fungi, much of modern medicine may become infeasible, including cancer chemotherapies, organ transplantation and high-risk abdominal surgeries."