WASHINGTON — A House committee on Wednesday moved forward with a bill that will not include any incentive for drug companies to develop new antibiotics, despite efforts by lobbyists and lawmakers to insert such provisions into the legislation.
Drug companies and public health advocates had hoped that some sort of incentive for companies to develop new antibiotics would be included in a bipartisan, must-pass bill that’s been working its way through the legislative process since the beginning of the year. The lack of new antibiotics is widely seen as a pressing public health concern, as infections that are resistant to the current supply of drugs kill tens of thousands of Americans each year, and pharmaceutical companies have a hard time making money on antibiotics.
Novartis just announced last week that it would end its antibiotic research program.
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