The global challenge of new classes of antibacterial agents: an industry perspective

•Resistance to antibiotics is making even simple bacterial infections untreatable.•Most pharmaceutical companies have given up on developing antibiotics.•Reasons include difficulty of finding selective molecules, regulatory hurdles and pricing problems for new antibiotics.•Smaller companies are developing new antibiotics.•Governments are passing new laws to reward the development of new antibiotics.

With rising antibiotic resistance and the fear of returning to the pre-penicillin era, incentives are being provided for developing novel antibiotics. The hurdles faced by antibiotic developers include the difficulty in discovering novel chemicals that have selectivity and the increased regulatory scrutiny for safety and efficacy. Furthermore, the demonstration of superiority is essential in order to rationalize pricing and to assure a return on investment. Suggestions are provided to overcome each of these hurdles in order to prevent the antibiotic pipeline from running dry.