Antibiotics Start-Ups
This article was originally published in Start Up
Executive Summary
Antibiotic R&D has always been one of the most challenging areas in biopharmaceutical drug development. Designing novel drugs that deter bacterial resistance is a technical hurdle to be sure, but it's also a commercial one: drugs doomed to rapid obsolescence don't promise a strong return on investment. There are regulatory uncertainties, too. Although FDA is now asking drug sponsors to compare the effectiveness of products against a placebo or marketed drug for some indications--for the most part, certain infections in the primary care setting--non-inferiority studies remain the norm for life-threatening infectious diseases. But the agency has yet to issue hard and fast rules on where to apply these studies and how to evaluate the use of non-inferiority margins. A recent meeting of FDA's Anti-Infective Drugs Advisory Committee provided some clarity.