Antibiotic resistance in the patient with cancer: Escalating challenges and paths forward.

Infection is the second leading cause of death in patients with cancer. Loss of efficacy in antibiotics due to antibiotic resistance in bacteria is an urgent threat against the continuing success of cancer therapy. In this review, the authors focus on recent updates on the impact of antibiotic resistance in the cancer setting, particularly on the ESKAPE pathogens (Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Enterobacter spp.). This review highlights the health and financial impact of antibiotic resistance in patients with cancer. Furthermore, the authors recommend measures to control the emergence of antibiotic resistance, highlighting the risk factors associated with cancer care. A lack of data in the etiology of infections, specifically in oncology patients in United States, is identified as a concern, and the authors advocate for a centralized and specialized surveillance system for patients with cancer to predict and prevent the emergence of antibiotic resistance. Finding better ways to predict, prevent, and treat antibiotic-resistant infections will have a major positive impact on the care of those with cancer.

Expanding antibiotic, vaccine, and diagnostics development and access to tackle antimicrobial resistance.

The increasing number of bacterial infections globally that do not respond to any available antibiotics indicates a need to invest in-and ensure access to-new antibiotics, vaccines, and diagnostics. The traditional model of drug development, which depends on substantial revenues to motivate investment, is no longer economically viable without push and pull incentives. Moreover, drugs developed through these mechanisms are unlikely to be affordable for all patients in need, particularly in low-income and middle-income countries. New, publicly funded models based on public-private partnerships could support investment in antibiotics and novel alternatives, and lower patients' out-of-pocket costs, making drugs more accessible. Cost reductions can be achieved with public goods, such as clinical trial networks and platform-based quality assurance, manufacturing, and product development support. Preserving antibiotic effectiveness relies on accurate and timely diagnosis; however scaling up diagnostics faces technological, economic, and behavioural challenges. New technologies appeared during the COVID-19 pandemic, but there is a need for a deeper understanding of market, physician, and consumer behaviour to improve the use of diagnostics in patient management. Ensuring sustainable access to antibiotics also requires infection prevention. Vaccines offer the potential to prevent infections from drug-resistant pathogens, but funding for vaccine development has been scarce in this context. The High-Level Meeting of the UN General Assembly in 2024 offers an opportunity to rethink how research and development can be reoriented to serve disease management, prevention, patient access, and antibiotic stewardship.

Patient Access in 14 High-Income Countries to New Antibacterials Approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, European Medicines Agency, Japanese Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency, or Health Canada, 2010-2020.

BACKGROUND: Inaccessibility of medicines in low- and middle-income countries is a frequent challenge. Yet it is typically assumed that high-income countries have complete access to the full arsenal of medicines. This study tests this assumption for new antibacterials, which are saved as a last resort in order to prevent the development of resistance, resulting in insufficient revenues to offset costs. Prior studies report only regulatory approval, missing the important lag that occurs between approval and commercial launch, although some antibiotics never launch in some countries. METHODS: We identified all antibacterials approved and launched in the G7 and 7 other high-income countries in Europe for the decade beginning 1 January 2010, using quantitative methods to explore associations. RESULTS: Eighteen new antibacterials were identified. The majority were accessible in only 3 countries (United States, United Kingdom, and Sweden), with the remaining 11 high-income countries having access to less than half of them. European marketing authorization did not lead to automatic European access, as 14 of the antibacterials were approved by the European Medicines Agency but many fewer were commercially launched. There was no significant difference in access between "innovative" and "noninnovative" antibacterials. Median annual sales in the first launched market (generally the United States) for these 18 antibiotics were low, $16.2M. CONCLUSIONS: Patient access to new antibacterials is limited in some high-income countries including Canada, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. With low expected sales, companies may have decided to delay or forego commercialization due to expectations of insufficient profitability.

Antimicrobial Resistance: Is Health Technology Assessment Part of the Solution or Part of the Problem?

Antimicrobial resistance is a serious challenge to the success and sustainability of our healthcare systems. There has been increasing policy attention given to antimicrobial resistance in the last few years, and increased amounts of funding have been channeled into funding for research and development of antimicrobial agents. Nevertheless, manufacturers doubt whether there will be a market for new antimicrobial technologies sufficient to enable them to recoup their investment. Health technology assessment (HTA) has a critical role in creating confidence that if valuable technologies can be developed they will be reimbursed at a level that captures their true value. We identify 3 deficiencies of current HTA processes for appraising antimicrobial agents: a methods-centric approach rather than problem-centric approach for dealing with new challenges, a lack of tools for thinking about changing patterns of infection, and the absence of an approach to epidemiological risks. We argue that, to play their role more effectively, HTA agencies need to broaden their methodological tool kit, design and communicate their analysis to a wider set of users, and incorporate long-term policy goals, such as containing resistance, as part of their evaluation criteria alongside immediate health gains.

International cooperation to improve access to and sustain effectiveness of antimicrobials.

Securing access to effective antimicrobials is one of the greatest challenges today. Until now, efforts to address this issue have been isolated and uncoordinated, with little focus on sustainable and international solutions. Global collective action is necessary to improve access to life-saving antimicrobials, conserving them, and ensuring continued innovation. Access, conservation, and innovation are beneficial when achieved independently, but much more effective and sustainable if implemented in concert within and across countries. WHO alone will not be able to drive these actions. It will require a multisector response (including the health, agriculture, and veterinary sectors), global coordination, and financing mechanisms with sufficient mandates, authority, resources, and power. Fortunately, securing access to effective antimicrobials has finally gained a place on the global political agenda, and we call on policy makers to develop, endorse, and finance new global institutional arrangements that can ensure robust implementation and bold collective action.

Progress in the Fight Against Multidrug-Resistant Bacteria? A Review of U.S. Food and Drug Administration-Approved Antibiotics, 2010-2015.

A weak antibiotic pipeline and the increase in drug-resistant pathogens have led to calls for more new antibiotics. Eight new antibiotics were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) between January 2010 and December 2015: ceftaroline, fidaxomicin, bedaquiline, dalbavancin, tedizolid, oritavancin, ceftolozane-tazobactam, and ceftazidime-avibactam. This study evaluates the development course and pivotal trials of these antibiotics for their innovativeness, development process, documented patient outcomes, and cost. Data sources were FDA approval packages and databases (January 2010 to December 2015); the Red Book (Truven Health Analytics); Orange Book: Approved Drug Products with Therapeutic Equivalence Evaluations (FDA); and supplementary information from company filings, press releases, and media reports. Four antibiotics were approved for acute bacterial skin and skin-structure infection. Seven had similar mechanisms of action to those of previously approved drugs. Six were initially developed by small to midsized companies, and 7 are currently marketed by 1 of 3 large companies. The drugs spent a median of 6.2 years in clinical trials (interquartile range [IQR], 5.4 to 8.8 years) and 8 months in FDA review (IQR, 7.5 to 8 months). The median number of patients enrolled in the pivotal trials was 666 (IQR, 553 to 739 patients; full range, 44 to 1005 patients), and median trial duration was 18 months (IQR, 15 to 22 months). Seven drugs were approved on the basis of pivotal trials evaluating noninferiority. One drug demonstrated superiority on an exploratory secondary end point, 2 showed decreased efficacy in patients with renal insufficiency, and 1 showed increased mortality compared with older drugs. Seven of the drugs are substantially more expensive than their trial comparators. Limitations are that future research may show benefit to patients, new drugs from older classes may show superior effectiveness in specific patient populations, and initial U.S. prices for each new antibiotic were obtained from public sources. Recently marketed antibiotics are more expensive but have been approved without evidence of clinical superiority.

Delinking Investment in Antibiotic Research and Development from Sales Revenues: The Challenges of Transforming a Promising Idea into Reality.

Kevin Outterson and colleagues outline a model to address access, conservation, and innovation of antibiotics.

Implementing an EU pull incentive for antimicrobial innovation and access: blueprint for action.

In June, 2023, the Council of the EU published a recommendation that the European Commission should contribute to the design and governance of an EU cross-country pull incentive to stimulate antimicrobial innovation and access. In this Personal View, we discuss six key considerations to support the implementation of the new pull incentive-ie, the size of the potential pull incentive and possible contributions of the member states, design of the incentive model, interplay of the new pull incentive with the proposed revisions of the EU pharmaceutical legislation, roles and responsibilities of both the EU and member states, balance between pull and push incentives, and global cooperation and responsibility. As the involvement of the member states with the EU pull incentive will be voluntary, member states should have confidence that the processes used to identify eligible antimicrobials, negotiate terms and conditions, and oversee access agreements are transparent, inclusive, and methodologically robust.

Introduction: AMR Belongs in the Pandemic Instrument.

In the wake of COVID-19, the World Health Organization established an Intergovernmental Negotiating Body to negotiate a new instrument for pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response. This special issue of the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics brings together multidisciplinary scholarship to address the question of whether antimicrobial resistance should be included in this new instrument. Drawing from disciplines including law, anthropology, history, public health, public policy, economics, and veterinary medicine, this special issue explores the inclusion of AMR within the Pandemic Instrument from three perspectives: first, through the lens of global AMR governance, second, from the perspective of technical governance challenges and opportunities affecting the global ability to address AMR and future pandemics, and third, from the perspective of pandemic instrument mechanisms for strengthening global AMR governance. Each paper makes a concrete recommendation with respect to the importance of including AMR within the scope of the pandemic instrument.

A Pandemic Instrument Can Start Turning Collective Problems into Collective Solutions by Governing the Common-Pool Resource of Antimicrobial Effectiveness.

To address the complex challenge of global antimicrobial resistance (AMR), a pandemic treaty should include mechanisms that 1) equitably address the access gap for antimicrobials, diagnostic technologies, and alternative therapies; 2) equitably conserve antimicrobials to sustain effectiveness and access across time and space; 3) equitably finance the investment, discovery, development, and distribution of new technologies; and 4) equitably finance and establish greater upstream and midstream infection prevention measures globally. Biodiversity, climate, and nuclear governance offer lessons for addressing these challenges.

Estimating The Appropriate Size Of Global Pull Incentives For Antibacterial Medicines.

Antibacterial medicines should be foundational for modern medicine-a key part of the infrastructure of contemporary practice. Recently, however, antibacterials have struggled commercially. Even with "push" incentives (grants paid before regulatory approval), antibacterials have failed on the market because revenues are tied to volume sold. There are policy initiatives under way in the United States and United Kingdom that explore paying for exceptional antibacterials with "pull" incentives (paid after regulatory approval) by delinking the payments from volume via other payment formats such as market entry rewards and subscriptions. This article discusses these initiatives but also proposes an expected net present value model for calculating the global incentives required to create a functional antibacterial market, exploring options such as antibacterial subscriptions, market entry rewards, push incentives, higher prices, and drug development through charitable efforts. The model estimates that current push incentives should be continued, but governments must also enact pull incentives that will add several billion dollars to the global revenue stream of a highly innovative antibacterial, reduced by any grants received supporting clinical development of that product. The amounts in the proposed Pioneering Antibiotic Subscriptions to End Upsurging Resistance (PASTEUR) Act of 2021 and a UK pilot program are well within the bounds of an effective antibacterial pull incentive.

The impact of infections on reimbursement in 92 US hospitals, 2015-2018.

BACKGROUND: The diagnosis-related group (DRG) is a payment system introduced to standardize healthcare costs. However, reimbursement for treatment of infections does not always cover costs. METHODS: We used 2015-2018 data from 92 US hospitals in the Becton Dickinson Insights Research Database to compare the financial burden of hospital admissions within non-infection DRGs for patients with a bacterial infection (INF+) versus those without an infection (INF-). Included patients were adults with a hospital length of stay (LOS) ≥3 days and evidence of infection. Multi-variable adjusted analyses via generalized linear mixed models were used to evaluate the impact of an infection on outcomes. RESULTS: We analyzed data from 133,423 INF+ admissions and 170,531 INF- admissions. Infections were associated with an approximately two-fold increase in model-estimated LOS (9.2 vs 4.8 d; P < .001) and intensive care unit LOS (5.1 vs 2.8 d; P < .001). The average additional hospital cost for INF+ versus INF- admissions was $10,326 per admission (P < .001) and the average loss after reimbursement was $1,067 (P = .006). Only private insurance payers had a positive margin. CONCLUSIONS: Current reimbursement options for infections result in significant hospital financial burden. Reimbursement models should be reconsidered to enable adoption of costlier diagnostics and antimicrobials.