Federal-government financial incentives to drug companies have helped lead to at least seven late-stage antibiotics that may fight bacteria prone to turning into dangerous “superbugs,” a senior government medical official told lawmakers Tuesday.
“We have built a robust portfolio of broad-spectrum antibiotics that possess activity” against such microbes, said Richard J. Hatchett, acting director of the government’s biodefense agency. Dr. Hatchett, who heads the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, said there are seven drugs in advanced testing that may prove useful against the class of microbes called Gram-negative bacteria.
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