And There Goes Novartis!

News reports and personal communications from Novartis employees document that Novartis is shutting down their antibacterial and antiviral research groups.  Novartis seems to claim that this is because they have not been as productive in antibacterial research as in other areas.  While this may be true – finding new antibiotics is hard – we all know that the bigger reason is that there is no market especially when compared to oncology where Novartis has an outstanding franchise.  According to the Pew Charitable Trust, Novartis has a new monobactam in clinical development phase 2 targeting resistant Gram-negative pathogens. 

The Novartis shutdown has been a long time coming. Novartis has had a schizophrenic approach to antibiotics ever since they first established their research institute in Cambridge, MA.  They had a scientific research group, but their development and commercial groups were never happy with antibiotics. 

I don’t know what will happen to the 140 scientists and others affected by this latest catastrophe – but I wish them all well. We need their talents! 

So, among the large PhRMA players, who still has an antibiotic discovery program? Glaxo-Smith-Kline, Merck and Roche still carry out bench research to discover new antibiotics. Pfizer only has a clinical development program for antibiotics. Its probably only a matter of time for these large companies as well. 

Theoretically, any of the large pharma companies still engaged in antibiotic research or development might be available to license new antibiotics coming from biotech. But the numbers of such companies is shrinking rapidly. And biotech has struggled lately to get large pharma interested in their products.  Examples include Paratek, Achaogen and others. 

Strategically, we – society – are confused.  We keep pouring money into research carried out in small companies or academia to find new antibiotics that no one will develop or commercialize because there is no market. Ultimately, this strategy will fail unless we change course. We must fix the broken market.  Our best chance today is to support the REVAMP act now before the US congress. Call or write your representatives and get them to act before its too late!