The millennium bugs - the need for and development of new antibacterials

Global antibacterial resistance is becoming an increasing public health problem. Bacteria resistant to almost all of the available antibacterials have been identified. The pharmaceutical industry and fledgling biotechnology companies are responding to the threat of antibiotic resistance with renewed efforts to discover novel antibacterials in attempts to overcome bacterial resistance. Both short term and long term strategies are being vigorously pursued. Short-term efforts are focused on developing novel antibacterial agents with a narrow spectrum of action to combat the problem of Gram-positive resistant bacteria. Long-term approaches include the use of microbial genomic sequencing techniques to discover novel agents active against potentially new bacterial targets. Better use of existing agents using pharmacodynamic data to optimise antibiotic regimens is increasingly being addressed and the hope is that such measures will prevail until the newer agents are available. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. and International Society of Chemotherapy. All rights reserved.