[KSteffensen]

The main problem with development of new antibiotics is not that it requires groundbreaking new science to be invented, but that there is no business case for it. Or at least the business case for spending your R&D on anti-obesity medicine looks a lot better.

[johnea]

So, for those of us down here at the bottom of the karma ladder, after 5000 lines of comments about giving antibiotics to cows, which had nothing to do with the article, there is some actual discussion of the topic.

This inability to bring a product to market is in fact an artifact of the for-profit healthcare system.

Besides the obvious aspects of weight-loss and erectile-dysfunction drugs being more profitable, there is also an issue with imaginary property.

Pharma will not bring a drug to market unless they can own exclusive rights. Since this is a naturally occurring molecule, some tweak will need to be made before the chemical is eligible for a patent.

So until some company can make a custom modification, without disrupting the efficacy, it won't be considered a viable product.

[ninalanyon]

> This inability to bring a product to market is in fact an artifact of the for-profit healthcare system.

If that were the only, or principal, problem then surely we would notice that single payer systems do better by demanding production of other therapies.

[johnea]

How would they "demand" this?

Large pharma is going to develop in the US, where tax dollars fund a significant portion of research, and they get exclusive ownership of the resulting product.

Single payer systems do still display advantages for the drug's users.

Surely you've heard of people in the US buying prescription meds from Canada?

[ninalanyon]

> How would they "demand" this?

By asking a drug company to develop a therapy for a specific condition and offering to pay for it? Couple that with refusing to pay for drugs that do not offer good value for society as a whole.

[mmooss]

> The main problem with development of new antibiotics is ... that there is no business case for it.

It sounds like the main problem is a for-profit healthcare system.

[ninalanyon]

Not entirely though. Another problem is that governments only support the big players in drug research. They take the easy simple path.

[Cthulhu_]

Yeah, someone else mentioned that as well; if the researched, mass produced and readily available antibiotic is still mostly effective and sells well, spending millions on finding and getting approval for one that would only be used in 1% of cases is not profitable.

Gotta love capitalism.