Dive Brief:
- Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Michael Bennett (C-Co) have reintroduced a bill to support expedited development and approval of drugs that fight antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. The bill is known as the Promise for Antibiotics and Therapeutics for Health Act (PATH), the WSJ's Ed Silverman reports.
- The senators had introduced the bill previously in December 2014, but re-introduced it, because many members of Congress are new after the latest round of elections.
- In September ,President Obama introduced a plan to combat the growing problem of antibiotic resistance, which results in two million illnesses per year and 23,000 deaths.
Dive Insight:
The plan announced by President .Obama in September includes supporting basic research, facilitating public-private partnerships, creating a biopharmaceutical incubator and forming internal collaborations. Meanwhile, the introduction of the PATH Act addresses the need to accelerate the FDA approval process of new antibiotics. Currently, there are close to 40 new antibiotics in the pipeline.