By Kate Kelland
LONDON, May 14 (Reuters) - Companies that develop newantibiotics should be awarded prize money of up to $3.5 billionfor each new drug, instead of selling the medication at aprofit, a review backed by Britain's government said onThursday.
The review, lead by former Goldman Sachs chief economist JimO'Neill, said the lump sum payments could add up to $16-$37billion over 10 years, but should only be made when companieshave fully developed a successful bug-killing drug.
The prizes, of between $1.5 billion and $3.5 billion, shouldbe funded in part by the pharma industry itself, O'Neill said,probably also with input from national governments and "theglobal taxpayer".
The successful drugmaker would then be required to make noprofit from its sales of the drugs to governments and healthcareproviders around the world, he said, saying this approach would"de-link" the profitability of a drug from its volume of sales.
In recent years, bugs resistant to multiple drugs haveevolved at the same time as drugmakers have cut back investmentin finding new ways to fight them, creating a global healththreat as superbug strains of infections like tuberculosis andgonorrhoea have become untreatable.
O'Neill, who was asked last year by British Prime MinisterDavid Cameron to take an economist's view of the problem, saidfar too little is currently invested in hunting for new drugsagainst drug-resistant infections.
"We want to make antibiotics R&D (research and development)commercially sustainable so the field can attract the best mindsfrom research organisations, small biotech companies, largefirms or not-for-profit entities," O'Neill's review said.
"To do that we propose a system by which a globalorganisation has the authority and resources to commit lump-sumpayments to successful drug developers."
In his initial report, O'Neill estimated that anti-microbialresistance (AMR) could kill an extra 10 million people a yearand cost up to $100 trillion by 2050 if it is not brought undercontrol.
O'Neill has also proposed that a $2 billion innovation fundfinanced by drug companies should be created to invest inearly-stage research and speed up development of new medicinesto fight drug-resistant superbugs.
Sally Davies, the UK government's chief medical adviser,welcomed O'Neill's latest report, saying it would "stimulateimportant conversations between governments, pharmaceuticalcompanies and other funders".
British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline and Switzerland'sRoche pledged to work with O'Neill's team to pursue theproposals. (Editing by Ruth Pitchford)
Glaxosmithkline (GSK)
