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By Ludwig Burger
Nov 18 (Reuters) - Drugmakers have made some progress in
restraining antibiotics overuse, which leads to drug-resistant
infections, but have fallen short in making antibiotics more
widely available in low-income countries, an influential
foundation said.
For the third time since 2018 and 2020, the non-profit
Access to Medicine Foundation (AMF) has analysed https://accesstomedicinefoundation.org/amr-benchmark
how companies are dealing with the two-pronged challenge of
making bacteria-fighting drugs more widely available in poor
countries while also reining in the type of excess use that is
known to foster superbugs.
Unwarranted use of antibiotics - not only a first-world
problem but also widespread in loosely regulated markets
including Thailand, India and parts of Africa - increases the
risk of treatable pathogens developing escape mechanisms against
established drugs.
In the United States alone, more than 35,000 people die each
year from antibiotic-resistant infections, according to a report
https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/biggest-threats.html by the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A European
Union public health body has put the number of annual deaths in
the region at about 33,000.
In its Antimicrobial Resistance Benchmark report published
on Thursday, AMF said companies including GlaxoSmithKline
, Pfizer and Aurobindo have made some
strides in areas such as preventing antibacterial waste spilling
into the environment or shunning volume-based promotion tactics.
Thanks mainly to its development of new antibiotics and
responsible manufacturing, GSK scored best among large
pharmaceutical companies against a range of targets in AMF's
ranking for responsible access to antimicrobial drugs.
Pfizer was a close second mainly on the strength of its
stewardship to avoid overuse or misuse, antibiotic waste
management and access to drugs in poor countries.
Aurobindo led a ranking of generic drugmakers thanks to
activities including avoiding overuse.
Overall, however, manufacturers were still not doing enough
to bring their products to poorer parts of the world, the report
added.
"Companies are not taking the necessary steps to provide
access to the antibiotics and antifungals in their portfolios in
low- and middle-income countries – and where access strategies
are in place, they remain focused on a small set of countries,
people, and diseases," AMF said.
AMG, based in Amsterdam, is funded by Britain, the
Netherlands, the Gates Foundation, AXA Investment
Managers and the Wellcome Trust.
(Reporting by Ludwig Burger; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
