Fragile antibiotic supply leads to shortages worldwide

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Global demand for antibiotics has grown by two-thirds since2000, driven by population growth and the need for medicines tofight infectious diseases in low- and middle-income countries.

Most antibiotics are cheap, off-patent generic medicines,which is good for affordability. But that also means they havevery low profit margins particularly compared to modern drugsfor diseases like cancer offering manufacturers littleincentive to invest in new production facilities.

The rise in shortages has gone hand in hand with a wave ofconsolidation among the companies making generic drugswhichrange from global pharmaceutical giants to smaller firms incountries such as India reducing the number of suppliersmaking individual product lines.

Sporadic drug shortages are not unique to antibiotics.Recently, for example, there has been a worldwide shortage ofMylan's market-leading EpiPen emergency allergy device.

But antibiotic shortages can have especially direconsequences, since doctors have to resort to sub-optimaltreatments that are less efficient at killing specificpathogens, leading to the rise of resistant bacteria orso-called superbugs.

An estimated 70 per cent of bacteria are already resistant toat least one antibiotic that is commonly used to treat them,making the evolution of such superbugs one of the biggestthreats facing medicine today.