Drugmakers eye government money to combat antibiotic resistance
Political momentum to create a multibillion-dollar fund to reward developers of new antibiotics is growing in Washington. But it comes too late for Scynexis. With little demand so far for its new drug ibrexafungerp, the pharma company is scaling back promotion, seeking a new partner, and cutting its workforce.
Its product is just the latest in a series of antibiotics that have struggled to take off, alongside an even longer list of potential drugs that have not made it beyond the laboratory bench. A public health need for innovative treatments is increasingly being confronted by a reluctance to back products for fear they will be lossmaking.
“The market is fundamentally broken,” says Aleks Engels, a partner in Novo Holdings, a Danish life-sciences investor that has ploughed €130mn into potential treatments. “With the prospect of low volumes and low price, you end up not succeeding. We need to start rewarding companies that provide new drugs. We have to change the model.”
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Andrew Jack
