1. Estimating Canada’s Return on Investment from an Ambitious Program to Incentivize New Antibiotics
- Author:
- Rachel Silverman and Adrian Towse
- Publication Date:
- 12-2022
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development (CGD)
- Abstract:
- Anti-microbial drugs form the backbone of modern medicine. Yet their lifespan is naturally limited; over time, use of these drugs selects for mutations that survive exposure those same drugs, driving “anti-microbial resistance,” or AMR. Already, drug-resistant infections kill an estimated 5,400 Canadian citizens every year. In the absence of sufficient research and development (R&D) investment for new antimicrobials, deaths from drug-resistant infections could increase dramatically in the coming decade. To address this growing crisis and solve market failures that prevent the development of new antibiotics, the Government of Canada is considering a new program that would provide minimum guaranteed revenue to the successful developers of new antibiotics. In this note, we present the results of a modelling exercise to estimate the likely return on investment (ROI) from such a program, assuming it is paired with complementary and proportionate efforts from Canada’s G7 partners. The results are necessarily imprecise due to several uncertain parameters, but nevertheless provide evidence of a very high expected ROI that is robust to different inputs and assumptions.
- Topic:
- Health, Science and Technology, Investment, and Medicine
- Political Geography:
- Canada and North America