AMR Discovery Void:
The Lost Decades
For much of the 20th century, antibiotic discovery transformed medicine. Penicillin, streptomycin, tetracyclines, cephalosporins, carbapenems, and fluoroquinolones fundamentally changed survival outcomes for infectious diseases. Between the 1940s and the 1980s, pharmaceutical companies discovered and commercialized wave after wave of novel antibacterial classes. This era became known as the “golden age” of antibiotics.
Then discovery slowed.
Over the past four decades, the rate of discovery of novel antibiotic classes has dramatically declined. Scientific challenges increased, resistance mechanisms evolved, and commercial incentives deteriorated. By the early 2000s, many of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies had substantially reduced or eliminated antibiotic research.
Today, the world faces a dangerous mismatch: antimicrobial resistance continues to accelerate while the pipeline of truly novel antibiotics remains thin.
