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

A number of different proposals and research and development (R&D) models for stimulating antibiotic innovation have been proposed, each differing with respect to characteristics such as the type and timing of innovation incentives and the degree of governmental public control of the market. For antibiotics, business models based on sales volumes tend to promote overuse and thereby resistance. Here we build on a recently published Chatham House report focused on how policymakers could move forward in designing delinked mechanisms separating the return on investment in R&D from antibiotic sales volume and revenues. We describe three key issues, access, conservation, and innovation, and address how they could work within a delinked model for developing future antibiotics