The NHS is launching a ‘registration’ scheme for antibiotics with the pharmacy department

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The NHS will agree on registration procedures with drug manufacturers for antibiotics, as the UK wants to encourage the development of new drugs and prevent bacterial resistance caused by overuse.

The NHS on Monday said it would negotiate fixed fees with pharmaceutical companies of up to £20mn a year per drug, working with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the agency of health care financing.

The first program of its kind was designed to “break the link between payment companies and the number of antibiotics prescribed, removing incentives for overuse”, the NHS said.

The health service issued tenders for subscription contracts on Monday, with an estimated total value of £1.9bn over 16 years. The projects will operate in all four UK communities.

David Glover, the NHS’s deputy director of drug testing, said the plans were “a major step forward in ensuring that pharmaceutical companies can develop next-generation antibiotics to prevent -drug-resistant superbugs”.

Developing new antibiotics has always been an unpopular investment for pharmaceutical companies because new drugs must be used sparingly to avoid worsening antimicrobial resistance (AMR) – when the pathogens that cause ts’ Infections become life-threatening drugs.

This has contributed to the lack of new treatments, with no new classes of antibiotics discovered since the 1980s.

Without the development of new classes of drugs, drug-resistant infections could kill 10 million people worldwide by 2050, according to a report commissioned by the UK government in 2016. Millions of deaths 1.3 were caused by AMR in 2019.

The global cost of lost GDP could reach $1tn-$3.4tn per year by 2030, according to World Bank estimates.

Authorities are taking steps to encourage investment. Drug manufacturers developing new classes of antibiotics will receive “vouchers” under the EU proposal, where they would be given a longer period of control for other drugs in their portfolio.

Companies can use these vouchers to market their products for a long time without facing competition or selling the vouchers to their competitors.

Health minister Karin Smyth said the UK was “leading the way” in the development of new antibiotics. He added that anti-virus was not a “challenge that we can tackle alone” and that the government would seek “strong agreement at the United Nations General Assembly next month for ts’ joint action”.

The UK registration scheme comes after a 2022 trial phase between the NHS and Pfizer and Shionogi, US and Japanese drugmakers, for their sepsis and pneumonia drugs.

Huw Tippett, managing director of Shionogi Europe, said the new project is “the kind of sustainable solution we need to tackle the serious and urgent issue of antimicrobial resistance”.

The annual payment the UK will make for each drug is £20mn over no more than 16 years, with spending decisions controlled by the Nice watchdog.

The UK will prioritize products that treat infections caused by bacteria classified as “severe” by the World Health Organization, including so-called Gram-negative bacteria, which are among the threats to on the subject of drug resistance.

However, £20mn may still pale in comparison to the billions of pounds in sales that drugmakers hope to generate from the leading assets in their portfolios.

Paul Catchpole, head of quality and access policy at the British Pharmaceutical Industry Association, a trade body, said the plans to offer a “guaranteed return on investment” were “a good step . . . to ensure the availability of contraceptives”. -effective diseases for future generations”.