Better incentives needed to fight superbugs

The government should explore “radical ways” to encourage more firms to develop and produce antibiotics, an event has heard.

The head of the Wellcome Trust’s drug resistant infections priority programme, Tim Jinks, said at an event in London on 27 March that a system change is needed to redress decades of “disinvestment and neglect” in the development of antibiotics.

“An economic overhaul is necessary and without that, we’re not going to be able to achieve the progress which is necessary in this space,” he said.