MEPs call for EU to tackle antibiotic research shortcomings

EU should delink cost of research from drug prices, MEPs say

A group of MEPs has called for the EU to address shortcomings in antibiotic research through a forthcoming pharmaceutical strategy. The group warned that unless action is taken, “antimicrobial resistance will take us back to a pre-antibiotic age when death by infection was much more common”.

In a 5 October letter to the European Commission vice-president Margaritis Schinas and EU health commissioner Stella Kyriakides, the European Parliament interest group on antimicrobial resistance and other supporting MEPs said the EU must “address the market failures in antibiotic research and innovation, particularly in the later stages of clinical research”.