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The antibiotics crisis is a silent pandemic that threatens to knock modern society back into the medieval age of therapeutic leaches and serum therapy. A world where an accidental scratch in the rose garden can kill.

Why is the supply of new antibiotics so thin, and growing thinner? A high-profile Wall Street Journal article recently highlighted what everyone knows: There is huge need but no market demand.

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There are many interrelated causes. Doctors prefer to keep novel antibiotics in reserve, as a last-resort option, limiting sales volumes. Insurance companies like novel antibiotics that prevent costly ICU stays, but they’re used to the cheap price of older generics and balk at any price that allows recoupment of the full cost of development. Low prices and small volumes are a great recipe for insolvency as Achaogen’s experience showed.

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