• Question: Is it worth creating an antibiotic until the developed world is in a fit enough economic state so we can mass produce them and send them to the lesser developed parts of the world and not just save them for places such as America where people can afford them?

    Asked by James Blake's Charminster Casuals to Ceri, Marikka, Matt, Rob, Sally on 11 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Ceri Dare

      Ceri Dare answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      This is a really really good question! There are lots of medicines which are already invented and quite cheap to make, but which people in the developing world can’t afford.

      This is one reason why my job is mostly about how to use the antibiotics we already have more cleverly – by swapping them round lots and being careful what we use for which illness, we can slow down the development of resistance.

      The Medicins Sans Frontiers Treatment Access Campaign is all about this sort of problem, more info here: http://www.msfaccess.org/

    • Photo: Sally Cutler

      Sally Cutler answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      Hi, this is a good topic and rather controversial! Companies that make antibiotics want to receive a profit on their product, so better to have a market that can pay. Where would the money come from to produce these for developing countries? Here too, is treatment the most useful thing or prevention? Many have gone for the latter, prevention through vaccination as this will tend to protect you for longer. To treat, you need to find your patient and diagnose them first – all very difficult in a developing country. Most diagnosis is not even done unless you can pay!

    • Photo: Robert Hampson

      Robert Hampson answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      Antibiotics are cheap to manufacture! However, they are very very expensive to invent in the first place. Pharmaceutical companies fund drug research to the tune of hundreds of millions if not billions of pounds, when they sell their drugs they need to sell them with a considerable profit to pay for the research. This has been the way drugs are developed for many years.

      However, you are right in indicating that antibiotics are different.With cancer or heart disease they are not infectious. If you decide to pay for the treatment or not, it only effects you. However, with antibiotics and vaccines and things, they are much more of a public concern, if you decide not to take antibiotics or a vaccine, you are much more likely to pass on your disease to others causing further problems. Making antibiotics and vaccines available to everyone is therefore quite a high public health priority. Actually, the drug companies also have recognised this and provide antibiotics very cheaply to developing countries which couldn’t afford the normal prices using special schemes especially for this purpose.

      Antibiotics are starting to be treated differently the 2014 Longitude Prize (worth £10,000,000) is being offered by the British Government to anyone who can help with antibiotic resistance. Furthermore, many governments are trying to invest more in antibiotic research and encourage more industrial research in the area.

      Overall, I agree with your sentiment that we need to do more to help the global poor, however, if we don’t invent new antibiotics it will rapidly become a global and serious problem and could lead to millions of unnecessary deaths.

    • Photo: Marikka Beecroft

      Marikka Beecroft answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      Difficult question really!
      I would say yes it is worth researching new antibiotics because it takes years to understand, develop and risk assess an antibiotic. By the time you’ve done the economy may well be strong enough for what you are suggesting!

      Companies anyway don’t invest money into antibiotics because they don’t feel that developing one is cost effective. The cost of researching one and developing it can be much more then they could get back. Also why make a product that could become useless in a couple of years time? It is up to the research communities in universities to find new antibiotics and that way the most expensive part is done. The companies can then take over and use what we’ve found to mass produce them and hopefully this a cost effective way for new antibiotics to get out into the world and get to the poorer people in developing countries and not just for the rich.

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