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UK and European Union public and charitable funding from 2008 to 2013 for bacteriology and antibiotic research in the UK: an observational study

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Summary

Background

Since the 1990s, the number of new antibacterial drugs has plummeted and the number of antibiotic-resistant infections has risen, which has decreased the effective treatment of many disorders, including sepsis. We aimed to assess whether funding for bacteriology and antibiotic research to UK researchers had increased in response to this global crisis.

Methods

We systematically searched websites and databases of agencies that fund research in the UK to identify publicly and charitably funded projects from financial years 2008 to 2013 within the specialties of bacteriology and antibiotic research. We created a database to identify the projects funded. Grants awarded in euros were converted to pounds sterling (€1=£0·86).

Findings

We identified 609 projects within the specialty of bacteriology, 196 (32·2%) of which were on antibiotics. Of £13 846·1 million of available research funding, £269·2 million (1·9%) was awarded to bacteriology projects and £95·0 million (0·7%) was awarded for research on antibiotics. Additionally, £181·4 million in European Union (EU) funding was awarded to antibiotic research consortia including researchers based within the UK, including two EU Innovative Medicines Initiative awards, totalling £85·2 million.

Interpretation

To increase awareness of who funds antibiotic research and to facilitate priority setting and funding decisions, funding organisations need to be aware of the breadth and depth of present funding as a baseline by which funding from 2014 onwards can be measured and so that informed decisions about the future level of funding can be made. To resolve the crisis of antibiotic resistance, present levels of funding are inadequate and should be increased substantially.

Funding

British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy.

Introduction

The message that antibacterial (ie, antibiotic) drug resistance has become a world health crisis has been brought to global attention by WHO,1 the European Union (EU),2 the World Economic Forum,3 and, most recently, the UK Chief Medical Officer.4 Antibacterial drug resistance is a global problem that affects people in both developed and developing countries because of the rapid evolution and spread of drug-resistant bacteria and is increasingly recognised as an issue beyond science and medicine. WHO had antimicrobial resistance as their theme for the World Health Day in 2011, with their Director General Margaret Chan stating “no action today means no cure tomorrow”.1 In 2011, the European Commission devised an action plan for combating the rising threat of antimicrobial resistance, stating that it causes an estimated 25 000 deaths yearly and costs around €1·5 billion per year in Europe.2 The continuing increase in the numbers of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has been deemed by the UK Chief Medical Officer, Sally Davis, as “one of the greatest threats we face today”.4

The discovery of penicillin in 1929 and then streptomycin in 1943 were thought to be the beginning of the end for infectious diseases, because along with improved hygiene, the discovery of antibiotics caused an enormous decrease in the morbidity and mortality rates of infectious diseases. Because of the discovery of nearly half the antibiotics in regular clinical use today, the period between 1950 and 1960 was deemed the golden age of antibiotic discovery,5 and infectious disease was thought to inevitably become relegated to history and not be a burden to human health for much longer. However, since the first antibiotic discoveries, bacteria have evolved to become resistant to every antibiotic produced. Alexander Fleming stated in his 1945 Nobel Lecture that making bacteria resistant to penicillin in the laboratory was not difficult and he predicted that misuse or under dosing of antibiotics would lead to antibiotic resistance.6 The rate at which resistant bacteria have evolved and affected the efficacy of treatment of infectious diseases has been much quicker than the rate of new antibiotic discovery, with no new classes of antibiotics launched for 20 years and few new drugs licensed for use. Now that the arms race between new antibiotic discovery, research, and development seems to be losing out to the evolution of resistant pathogens,7 provision of new treatments for bacterial infections in a timely manner is a major challenge.

The UK is a known investor in global health, but little analysis has been done to assess its research funding for bacteriology and antibacterial research—a specialty that is deemed to warrant increased investment.8 We analysed data from the UK's major funding organisations along with the Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP7) from the European Commission and the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) to show how much funding is invested in the UK in the specialty of antibiotic research. We aimed to use this information to identify whether present funding is proportional to the burden of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections to the UK population and further afield and is adequate to tackle the problem of antibacterial resistance.

Section snippets

Data sources

We obtained data primarily from the websites and published databases of the following organisations, which were identified to fund bacteriology and antibiotic research: the Medical Research Council (MRC),9 Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC),10 Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC),11 Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA),12 National Institute for Health Research (NIHR),13 Wellcome Trust,14 Technology Strategy Board (TSB),15

Results

We identified 609 projects related to bacteriology, 196 (32·2%) of which were awarded to antibiotic research. Of £13 846·1 million available research funding, the net value of the projects within bacteriology was £269·2 million (1·9%), with £95·0 million (0·7%) for antibiotic research projects. We identified that the UK funder that supports antibiotic research the most depends on how these data are interpreted and analysed. By analysing data in terms of grant value, number of grants awarded,

Discussion

From the information available and analysed, we show that antibiotic research is an area that receives a fraction of the research funding available and the amount of funding does not match the burden of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections or their social and economic effect on the treatment of infections and on medicine in general (panel).3, 4, 102 This report exclusively focused on antibiotic research as being synonymous with research on antibacterials. An analysis of UK funding

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