Challenges of antibacterial drug discovery

Abstract

Efforts to discover novel antibacterial drugs over the past decades have been characterized by high attrition rates, driven mainly by technical challenges, high dose and safety requirements, regulatory difficulties and low-cost generic competition, resulting in a broken financial model. Consequently, most pharmaceutical and biotech companies have exited their research efforts in this field, leaving the required rejuvenation of antibacterial drugs under-resourced. This article sheds light on some of the technical difficulties and offers thoughts and suggestions on how to address and overcome these.