Antibiotic Development Incentives That Reflect Societal Value of Antibiotics

To the Editor—Rome and Kesselheim [1] claimed that rewarding developers of novel antibiotics with transferable exclusivity vouchers is an expensive approach to promoting antibiotic development. This analysis is incomplete as it focuses only on the cost of bringing new antibiotics to market without acknowledging their societal value. The authors also did not suggest an alternative approach. With patients running out of treatment options for resistant infections, failing to strengthen the antibiotic pipeline is not a reasonable option. The antibiotic pipeline is collapsing. Although current incentives have had a measurable impact on antibiotic development with 7 new antibiotics approved since the Generating Antibiotic Incentives...