science

The pipeline of new drugs to fight superbugs remains “worryingly thin” and has shrunk by 35% in the last five years, experts have warned, predicting the annual number of deaths linked to drug-resistant infections globally will double to 8 million by 2050.

The number of projects from large pharma companies has shrunk by 35% over the past five years, from 92 to 60 medicines in development, according to a report from the Access to Medicine Foundation (AMF), a Netherlands-based non-profit group, and the Wellcome Trust.

“Overall, however, the R&D pipeline remains worryingly thin, and industry investment has lost momentum,” said Jayasree K Iyer, the chief executive of AMF. She described drug resistance as the biggest single threat to healthcare worldwide.

More than 1 million people die each year directly from drug resistant infections but they contribute to 4 million deaths worldwide a year. Both figures are forecast to double by 2050 – to nearly 2 million and more than 8 million respectively.