Recent advances and challenges in antibacterial drug development: Editorial

Abstract

There is a continuing need for new antibacterial drugs to deal with the burgeoning of bacterial pathogens resistant to the existing armamentarium of antibacterial drugs, compromising their effectiveness; furthermore, emerging pathogens are now considered to be a major microbiologic public health threat. Over the years, these issues have been addressed with the modification of existing antibiotic classes or the search for new structural classes. The latter approach has not been particularly successful, as evidenced by the fact that the last novel antibacterial class to be developed was discovered in 1984. Today the clinical pipeline is predominantly occupied by derivatives of established classes, although there are some novel entries in development [1]