Op-Ed: Superbugs Call for Super Changes in Drug-Sale Rules

The traditional pharmaceutical business model—which incentivizes companies to maximize antibiotic sales before patents expire—accelerates the development of drug-resistant infections. The authors propose restructuring antibiotic economics by pricing new antibiotics higher to reflect their true societal value, but conditioning continued marketing exclusivity on meeting government-set conservation and resistance targets, thereby aligning manufacturers’ financial incentives with public health goals of antibiotic stewardship. They also advocate for a Strategic Antibiotic Reserve to preserve the most valuable new antibiotics for future use.