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ABSTRACT
Introduction: Bacterial resistance to antibiotics develops at an alarming rate and leads to the increasing morbidity and health-care costs in recent years. However, the global research and development (R&D) of antibiotics has fallen behind the emergence and spread of bacterial resistance and the world is heading towards a ‘post-antibiotic era’. In this context, systematic understanding of the technology landscape and evolving process of antibiotic R&D may help to provide insights for discovering future antibiotics more rationally.
Areas covered: Patents and patent citations are broadly believed to be powerful tools in representing the technology advances and capturing technology flows. In all, 707 U.S. patents related to antibiotic R&D are collected and analyzed. Furthermore, patent citations are visualized by a network-based approach, while the inter-relationship between patented technologies on antibiotics is further revealed.
Expert opinion: The current dry pipeline of antibiotic development requires substantial awareness and political support. It is essential to build an attractive and supportive environment for investment. Thus, a new antibiotic business model is needed to chase the balance between the market-oriented investment and public health goals. Additionally, drug development targeting Gram-negative bacteria, especially resistant Gram-negative bacteria, demands attentions from stakeholders because of their unmet medical needs.
Article highlights
The gap between the looming crisis of bacterial resistance and the dried pipeline of novel antibiotics triggers a severe threat to the health of human being in the so-called post-antibiotic era.
In terms of the intensity of patenting technologies, Gram-positive bacteria and relevant resistance has received more attention, in comparison with Gram-negative bacteria.
Large pharmaceutical companies (Pfizer, Sanofi, GlaxoSmithKline, etc.) still occupy a significant place in innovations associated with antibiotic development after a period of withdrawal on antibiotic development.
Most technology flows happen within the same modes of antibacterial action, while only a few can be detected across distinct actions.
Interfering with cell wall synthesis is the dominating mechanism involving not only summarizer patents learning from many previous patents but leader patents highly cited by subsequent patents. This further implies the active roles of this antibacterial mechanism on innovation diffusion and development of antibiotics.
This box summarizes key points contained in the article.
Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge Ms. Xiaomei Geng for data collection.
Declaration of interest
The University of Macau provided financial support for this research by the projects MYRG2015-00145-ICMS-QRCM and SRG2015-00006-FHS.