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The commercial landscape for antibiotics has changed radically. Until recently, it was widely accepted that antibiotic development companies could not create a viable return on investment (ROI). The reasons included:
Mainstream antibiotic treatment cycles are relatively short, being a matter of 1 or 2 weeks compared to anti-cancer or metabolic disease drugs which are taken perennially;
the expectation that antibiotics must be cheap, based on the glut of generic small chemical entity-based drugs that have historically been available;
the expectation that any newly launched antibiotic would be reserved for last-line treatment to reduce the risk of antimicrobial resistance.
Governmental “Pull” incentives coupled with a number of licence deals and transactions in this area of drug development indicate a change is underway. A number of bodies, supported directly or indirectly by major pharmaceuticals companies, are changing the dynamic and include: The AMR Action Fund (global), CARB-X (US), GARDP (US), INCATE (Switzerland), Innovate UK (UK), and LifeArc (UK).
Recent deals and transactions involving antibiotic development companies include:
Pfizer acquisition, for an undisclosed sum, of Arixa Pharmaceuticals Inc. in October 2020 to get access to ARX-1796, an oral prodrug of avibactam;
GSK’s $591 million licence deal with Spero Therapeutics announced in September 2022, comprising an upfront fee of $66 million and up to $525 million in milestone and sales threshold payments for a Phase 2 asset, Tebipenem HBI;
Shionogi’s $100 million merger with QPex Biopharma Inc. for xeruborbactam, a Phase 1 clinical beta-lactamase inhibitor, with up to $40 million in further fees based upon attainment of certain development and regulatory milestones.