[danieltillett]

The medical policy is a major component of the problem. What the drug companies have discovered is if they release a new antibiotic that the doctors put it on the shelf with the plan to only use the antibiotic in emergencies. Of course when this happens the drug company makes no money and so rightly concludes that antibiotic development is not profitable.

There have been lots of proposals to overcome this. My personal favourite is each country agrees to pay a straight cash bonus for each new antibiotic developed with a different valued bonus in proportion to the need. The drug companies would then not need to worry if the antibiotic was used or not and we would have on tap new antibiotics to use as resistance arises.