What's new in the antibiotic pipeline

Many advances have recently been made in the development of chemotherapeuti c agents for bacterial infections. As a consequence of problematic antimicr obial-resistant bacteria, research is now directed towards narrow-spectrum agents rather than broad-spectrum agents. Further, orally active agents hav e always been desirable, but today's cost-saving environment, in line with a desire to minimize treatment costs, values reduced administration costs a nd keeping patients out of the hospital. There has been a recent increase i n research into orally active antibacterial agents, such as carbapenems and cephalosporins, and non-glycopeptide natural products.