2 November 2023
Zoliflodacin is remarkable, but I don’t mean that for the obvious reasons.
Yes, it is the first of a new kind of antibiotic. And it could soon become the first new antibiotic in decades to treat gonorrhea, working against all the strains of the bacteria that are resistant to the drugs we have. Plus zoliflodacin can be swallowed. And it takes just one dose to work.
All of that is exciting. But to me the most remarkable thing about zoliflodacin is how it came to market: The heavy lifting of getting it from lab to clinic was paid for and run by a nonprofit, not by a pharmaceutical giant.
This new model for putting the next generation of antibiotics into doctors’ and patients’ hands offers hope. Infections that can’t be treated with antibiotics now are associated with nearly 5 million deaths a year. When I was a doctor in Africa and Asia early in my career, I saw firsthand the suffering and stigma caused by untreatable infections and realized there had to be a better way forward.