400,000 lives at risk as Canada lags in fight against superbugs: McMaster researchers in Hamilton
Published February 15, 2022 at 3:32 pm
Researchers at McMaster in Hamilton are calling upon Canadian health officials to change how treatments for “superbugs” are handled. 400,000 lives and $388 billion could be at risk.
A new proposal developed by an interdisciplinary team of McMaster University researchers says the country needs to change how novel antibiotics are approved, procured, and accessed.
This work is a direct response to the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which occurs when microbes develop ways to protect themselves from the effects of antimicrobial medications, such as antibiotics. These resistant microbes are colloquially known as superbugs.
Researchers say several drugs with efficacy against these superbugs have been approved for use in other jurisdictions but remain unavailable to Canadian patients.
Microbiologist Lori Burrows is leading an interdisciplinary team of McMaster University researchers that have developed a series of recommendations aimed at fighting the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Canada. (McMaster University photo)
New research published in Clinical Infectious Diseases reveals that of 18 novel antibiotics approved and commercially launched in 14 high-income countries over the past decade, only two have been introduced in Canada — the fewest on the entire list. Meanwhile, other countries like the U.S. have introduced as many as 17 new antibiotics within the same span.
“We believe that this can be rectified through incentivization and regulatory improvements, as other G7 countries are doing,” said Lori Burrows, associate director of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research (IIDR). “But having these newer antibiotics commercially launched here is just part of the equation. Canada must also expand front-line access to these medications through measures related to data, costs, distribution and supply and demand.”
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Some of the recommendations put forth in this proposal include:
- Expediting and streamlining the marketing approval of select priority antibiotics that have already been approved by the EMA in the EU or the FDA in the US
- Creating specific funding envelopes to help Canadian hospitals purchase new antibiotics
- Establish national forecasts for antibiotics required by Canadian patients, including for those not yet approved here
The proposal also calls upon the Canadian government to encourage pharmaceutical companies to bring their products to the Canadian market through an incentive model that is based on an antibiotic’s overall value to the Canadian health-care system, thereby delinking sales volume from pharmaceutical return on investment.
“Part of the reason we’re seeing drugs approved elsewhere but not here in Canada is because approval costs are high, our population is relatively small and physicians try to use new antibiotics only as a last resort to reduce the chance of resistance to them developing,” Burrows explained.
“These factors make it unlikely that companies will see a return on their investment; however, guaranteeing revenue for manufacturers – similar to what the government did to purchase COVID-19 vaccines – reduces those financial risks and encourages companies to bring these life-saving medications to the Canadian market.”
According to another report, 26 per cent of infections in Canada are currently resistant to the drugs used to treat them, but this rate is expected to rise to 40 per cent by 2050. If these forecasts are accurate, AMR is anticipated to cost nearly 400,000 Canadian lives and $388 billion in GDP losses over the next 30 years, according to McMaster researchers.
The full proposal can be read here.
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