ID :
141718
Sat, 09/11/2010 - 23:13
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://www.oananews.org//node/141718
The shortlink copeid
Japan has no candidate for antibiotics to stem multi-resistant bugs
TOKYO, Sept. 11 Kyodo -
Japan's pharmaceutical industry does not have even a single candidate for new
antibiotics to counter multidrug-resistant superbugs such as some types of
Acinetobacter and E. coli bacteria, according to an expert who has reporting
the situation to the government.
Shuhei Fujimoto, a professor at Tokai University's Department of Bacteriology
and Bacterial Infection, said he alerted the Health, Labor and Welfare
Ministry's study group on superbug matters to the lack of new antibiotics
indispensable to treat people infected with such bacteria.
''Although the battle with multidrug-resistant bacteria has long been
buttressed by developments of new antibiotics, we are in a critical situation
at present,'' he said.
Low profitability of antibiotics appears to be a factor behind pharmaceutical
manufacturers' reluctance to make developmental efforts for new antibiotics, he
said.
A total of 58 people have been infected with multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter
in Teikyo University Hospital since last year, including those who have died,
and E. coli with the gene to produce the NDM-1 enzyme that makes bacteria
resistant to most antibiotics was reported for the first time in Japan earlier
this week.
Fujimoto said he has told the ministry's study group that low profitability
stems from the fact that a bacterium capable of resisting a new antibiotic is
detected and reported in only four years on average after the antibiotic
debuts, although new antibiotics development requires huge costs.
The medical community overseas faces a similar situation under which the number
of newly developed antibiotics in the 2000s has plunged to less than one-fourth
the corresponding number in the 1980s, he said.
In Japan, there used to be some years during the 1980s when the annual number
of newly released antibiotics exceeded five.
But no antibiotic as promising as to lead a drug maker to release it on the
market has been found since 2000. In the 2000s, a small number of antibiotics
discovered before 2000 were released.
One antibiotic each was released in 1998 and 1999, but drug makers have halted
efforts to develop other candidate agents for antibiotics, he said.
Currently, more than 130 antibiotics are being marketed in Japan. But many
multidrug-resistant pseudomonas and part of vancomycin-resistant enterococci
have already acquired the ability to resist all existing antibiotics.
New antibiotics take an average seven years before being released after their
discovery.
Since there is no stock of candidates for new antibiotics in the domestic
industry, it is impossible to expect new antibiotics to become ready for
release within the subsequent 10 years or so, Fujimoto said.
All the medical community can do under the present critical situation is to
make some improvements to antibiotics that had been approved by the ministry in
the past and release them, he cautioned.
==Kyodo
Japan's pharmaceutical industry does not have even a single candidate for new
antibiotics to counter multidrug-resistant superbugs such as some types of
Acinetobacter and E. coli bacteria, according to an expert who has reporting
the situation to the government.
Shuhei Fujimoto, a professor at Tokai University's Department of Bacteriology
and Bacterial Infection, said he alerted the Health, Labor and Welfare
Ministry's study group on superbug matters to the lack of new antibiotics
indispensable to treat people infected with such bacteria.
''Although the battle with multidrug-resistant bacteria has long been
buttressed by developments of new antibiotics, we are in a critical situation
at present,'' he said.
Low profitability of antibiotics appears to be a factor behind pharmaceutical
manufacturers' reluctance to make developmental efforts for new antibiotics, he
said.
A total of 58 people have been infected with multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter
in Teikyo University Hospital since last year, including those who have died,
and E. coli with the gene to produce the NDM-1 enzyme that makes bacteria
resistant to most antibiotics was reported for the first time in Japan earlier
this week.
Fujimoto said he has told the ministry's study group that low profitability
stems from the fact that a bacterium capable of resisting a new antibiotic is
detected and reported in only four years on average after the antibiotic
debuts, although new antibiotics development requires huge costs.
The medical community overseas faces a similar situation under which the number
of newly developed antibiotics in the 2000s has plunged to less than one-fourth
the corresponding number in the 1980s, he said.
In Japan, there used to be some years during the 1980s when the annual number
of newly released antibiotics exceeded five.
But no antibiotic as promising as to lead a drug maker to release it on the
market has been found since 2000. In the 2000s, a small number of antibiotics
discovered before 2000 were released.
One antibiotic each was released in 1998 and 1999, but drug makers have halted
efforts to develop other candidate agents for antibiotics, he said.
Currently, more than 130 antibiotics are being marketed in Japan. But many
multidrug-resistant pseudomonas and part of vancomycin-resistant enterococci
have already acquired the ability to resist all existing antibiotics.
New antibiotics take an average seven years before being released after their
discovery.
Since there is no stock of candidates for new antibiotics in the domestic
industry, it is impossible to expect new antibiotics to become ready for
release within the subsequent 10 years or so, Fujimoto said.
All the medical community can do under the present critical situation is to
make some improvements to antibiotics that had been approved by the ministry in
the past and release them, he cautioned.
==Kyodo
