Economist Jim O'Neill sets out plan to overhaul the global antibiotics pipeline

LONDON May 15 (People's Daily Online)—— Economist Jim O'Neill has published a report and set out a plan to overhaul the global antibiotics pipeline. He said on Wednesday, ​No new classes of antibiotics have been created for decades and our current drugs are becoming less effective as resistance increases.“We need to kick-start drug development to make sure the world has the drugs it needs, to treat infections and to enable modern medicine and surgery to continue as we know it.​ ​My review on AMR (anti-microbial resistance) has today published clear proposals to supercharge antibiotics discovery, potentially saving millions of lives for a fraction of the 100 trillion USD cost of inaction.​”

The cost of the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) problems are too catastrophic to ignore for future human and economic. To tackle this challenge, Mr O'Neill sets out five necessary steps that should be taken immediately.

In the report, he gives proposals can overhaul the antibiotics pipeline over the next 20 years. “We want to make antibiotics R&D commercially sustainable so that the field can attract the best minds from research organisations, small biotech companies, large firms or not-for-profit entities.”

Other proposals includes a global innovation fund of around $2 billion over five years that would be used to help boost funding for research into new drugs and diagnostic tools.

All these interventions require political leadership at a global level. O'Neill hopes next year's G20 could promote this action.