Hospital-Acquired Infections Cost More Than Global Antibiotic Sales

Piribo, the online destination for business intelligence for the biotech and pharmaceutical industry, has now added a new report on the latest developments in the pharmaceutical industry in combating antibiotic resistance. It also contains current official global antibiotic resistance levels and trends.

(PRWEB) August 25, 2007 -- Piribo, the online destination for business intelligence for the biotech and pharmaceutical industry, has now added a new report on the latest developments in the pharmaceutical industry in combating antibiotic resistance. It also contains current official global antibiotic resistance levels and trends.

"Antibiotics and Drug Resistance 2007" examines the latest antibiotics, technologies and anti-bacterial strategies being developed to fight resistance mechanisms. It takes a comprehensive look at over 370 pipeline antibiotics and anti-bacterial technologies, reviews more than 340 patents published between 2002-2007 and highlights the opportunities offered by more than 200 fully launched antibiotics revealing their potential to provide more effective long-term therapies.

There have been global efforts to find alternatives to current antibiotics which have caused resistance in bacteria, making the antibiotics less effective in destroying pathogens. The report carries the latest published figures on antibiotic resistance, from more than 35 countries obtained from sources such as the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System in Europe, the Health Protection Agency in the UK, the Active Bacterial Core surveillance Project in the US, and China's National Center for Antimicrobial Resistance. These figures show increasing levels of antibiotic resistance worldwide, and list the both the pathogen and antibiotic.

Analysts have said that though definitive statistics are presently unavailable, there is a strong correlation between antibiotic resistant pathogens and levels of hospital-acquired infections. For instance, in the US it is reported that 50-60% of all hospital-acquired infections are caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria. Authors of the report say that the costs associated with the treatment of hospital-acquired infections provide an important measure of the failure of current antibiotics. This report estimates that hospital-acquired infections in the developed world costs more than $32.5 billion, higher than current global sales on antibiotics.

In addition, the report finds that in human terms, hospital-acquired infection levels in the developed world could be higher than 7 million and deaths could exceed 400,000. In Asia, these figures could be significantly higher as the total population is 3.7 billion and resistance levels are reported to be growing the fastest in China which has a population of 1.3 billion.

Authors of the report have identified the top 20 developmental candidates and their position in the pipeline. The technologies at the anti-bacterial mechanistic level, especially those that offer the greatest hope are pinpointed. The study also lists the companies and research groups that are developing new drugs and technologies to fight antibiotic resistance.

"Antibiotics and Drug Resistance 2007" is available in pdf format from Piribo. For more information, go to: http://www.piribo.com/publications/biotechnology/antibiotics_drug_resistance_2007.html

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