Giving Compass' Take:

• Jeremy Farrar argues that companies like Achaogen need early support and investment to develop a viable path for new antibiotics. 

• How can funders and investors work to support for-profit enterprises with social benefits? 

• Learn more about the dangers of antimicrobial resistance.

Achaogen is not a company most people have heard of. It is not a household name, barely has an international presence and most of us have never used one of its products. The few who have probably don’t know the company either, even if its product saved their life. And yet its recently announced bankruptcy(opens in a new tab) is one of the most significant – and worrying – corporate failures of this decade.

In the global struggle against superbugs, Achaogen is a biotech at the front line. Its failure is the latest symptom of an ailing antibiotics market. Decades of disinvestment have left perilously few companies active in antibiotic development(opens in a new tab). Those remaining are often dependent on support from philanthropic or public funders – such as the Wellcome Trust, the medical research charity, or the US government.

This support has catalysed an exciting crop of biotechs that are now driving antibiotic innovation. But to go beyond early-stage research and initial small-scale trials, they need private capital to step in. Without external investment, small biotechs cannot carry prospective drugs through the complex and expensive later-stage trials they must pass.

Against the odds, Achaogen appeared to have succeeded. Its antibiotic, plazomicin, was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2018 for treating complex urinary tract infections caused by drug-resistant bacteria. It is a vitally needed drug and just one of the many new antibiotics we need to replace drugs that are rapidly losing their effectiveness against superbugs.

Read the full article about a viable path for new antibiotics by Jeremy Farrar at Wellcome.