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Novartis exit more bad news for antibiotics research
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Novartis, a Switzerland-based pharmaceutical company, announced last week that it will shut down its antibacterial and antiviral research programs and lay off approximately 140 employees.
“While the science for these programs is compelling, we have decided to prioritize our resources in other areas where we believe we are better positioned to develop innovative medicines that will have a positive impact for patients,” the company said in a news release.
The announcement is more bad news for antibiotics research, according to Helen Boucher, MD, director of the infectious diseases fellowship program at Tufts Medical Center and professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine, who noted the sale or restructuring of programs by other pharmaceutical companies.
“The loss of a sustainable research and development pipeline of antibiotics is a significant contributor to the global crisis of antibiotic resistance,” Boucher told Infectious Disease News. “Without a robust and sustainable pipeline of antibiotics to combat infections, especially those caused by resistant bacteria, our patients will suffer, and we may return to an era where it is unsafe to perform surgery, give chemotherapy for cancer, etc.”
Elizabeth S. Dodds Ashley, PharmD, MHS, Infectious Disease News Editorial Board member and associate professor of medicine at Duke University School of Medicine, said these moves are becoming an industry-wide problem and that new antibiotic drugs will always be needed.
“Antibiotics are the only drug class that stop working or begin to stop working the minute we start using them because resistance develops,” she told Infectious Disease News.
“So, you could argue that for some things, such as cardiology drugs, they’re coming at a time where we don’t necessarily need more. That’ll never be true for antibiotics,” she said. “It’s the one area that drug companies are abandoning and it’s the one drug class that will always need more drugs. ... It’s unfortunate that many companies are being forced out of that marketplace because of understandable but financial reasons.”
At the time of the company’s announcement, Novartis’ antiviral research team was focused on infections such as hepatitis B, respiratory viruses and opportunistic infections, and the antibacterial researchers were working to address multidrug-resistant gram-negative bacteria, according to company spokesman Ryan McBride.
McBride said Novartis is actively seeking partners for its antibacterial research preclinical programs and clinical state program.
In addition to antibacterial and antiviral research being completely cut, he said other departments will be directly affected by Novartis’ decision, including pharmacology, protein sciences, project management and global support functions in Global Discovery Chemistry, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research informatics, scientific operations and translational medicine.
“Moving forward, we will continue to be actively engaged in three areas identified in the global [antimicrobial resistance (AMR)] industry roadmap as critical to success in the field — ensuring access to critical existing antimicrobials, ensuring responsible and appropriate use of existing antimicrobials, and driving responsible manufacturing standards, including the application of consistent [environmental, health and safety] standards in manufacturing to address environmental sources of AMR,” the company said in the release. – by Caitlyn Stulpin
Disclosures: Boucher reports being on an advisory board for Merck. McBride works for Novartis. Infectious Disease News was unable to confirm relevant financial disclosures for Dodds Ashley at the time of publication.