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“We need new antibiotics,” Estelle Fruchet, Shionogi Europe’s general manager for France said.
And while this might not sound like a particularly novel revelation, the stats behind her plea should have us all worried.
In this episode of The Big Question, Estelle joined Angela Barnes in the studio to discuss why antimicrobial resistance could become the next economic crisis.
Death, sick days and lackluster productivity
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is the technical term for when bacteria mutate and become resistant to being killed by antibiotics. It is why we are all told we should not be too liberal with our use of these drugs.
“When I started 25 years ago, there were a lot of prescriptions of antibiotics for a simple cough. And the more you use them, the more the bacteria can become resistant,” Estelle explained.
With fewer treatment options against resistant bacteria, the unnecessary death toll is racking up.
According to the European Centre for Disease prevention and Control (ECDC), AMR infections cause more than 35,000 deaths every year in the EU.
Globally, it is about 1.3 million people per year. That is roughly the population of Prague, Dublin or Helsinki.
What does AMR mean for the economy?
Rising cases of illness and longer hospital stays mean both increased medical costs for already strained healthcare systems and loss of earnings for the patients, as well as reduced productivity for their employers.
This is costing Europe around €12 billion per year and that figure is only set to rise.
If left unchecked, a 2024 Lancet publication suggested that between now and 2050 a total of 39 million people could die from AMR-induced infections globally. And it is predicted that this will cost the world $412bn (€352bn) a year in additional healthcare costs and $443bn (€379bn) per year in lost workforce productivity.
Some predictions are even bleaker, projecting $1 trillion of additional healthcare costs and a 3.8% loss of global annual GDP.
And where costs rise, a lower quality of life could follow.
Can we solve AMR?
Much of the pharmaceutical industry has long since given up developing new antibiotics. Shionogi is one of the few that are persevering.
It costs around €1 billion and 10-15 years to develop any new drug and 95% of them are failures. But the unique problem with antibiotics is that market prices for them are quite low and their usage has to be limited, so the ROI to develop an antibiotic just isn’t good business.
“This is what we call a broken market,” Estelle told The Big Question.
“We need a new economic model. We need governments to think about and to propose new financing schemes to become more attractive for the industry.”
The UK has recently begun a subscription model known informally as the “Netflix model” where the UK’s health service pays pharmaceutical companies a fixed annual fee for access to vital antibiotics regardless of the volume of usage, in a bid to incentivise innovation.
“It has been piloted in the UK, so this is something that’s working and I think it could be implemented in other countries like France,” Estelle suggested.
But the pharma boss pressed that success in the battle against AMR requires collaboration between doctors, policymakers, government and the wider industry.
Despite 2030 targets to reduce antibiotic usage by 20%, consumption in the EU increased in 2024.
A push to reduce the usage of antibiotics, not only in humans but in animals and agricultural usage is vital too, alongside push and pull incentives to stimulate investment in new drug development.
“International cooperation is also needed because bacteria is everywhere,” Estelle concluded.
The Big Questionis a series from Euronews Business where we sit down with industry leaders and experts to discuss some of the most important topics on today’s agenda.
Watch the video above to see the full discussion on AMR with Shionogi Europe.
Additional sources • Edited by Arno Aubert
