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

Global antibacterial resistance is becoming an increasing public health pro blem. Bacteria resistant to almost all of the available antibacterials have been identified. The pharmaceutical industry and fledgling biotechnology c ompanies 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 a gents with a narrow spectrum of action to combat the problem of Gram-positi ve resistant bacteria. Long-term approaches include the use of microbial ge nomic sequencing techniques to discover novel agents active against potenti ally new bacterial targets. Better use of existing agents using pharmacodyn amic data to optimise antibiotic regimens is increasingly being addressed a nd the hope is that such measures will prevail until the newer agents are a vailable. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. and International Society of Chemo therapy. All rights reserved.