New Index Rates Drug Companies in Fight Against ‘Superbugs’<br />Global Health By<br />DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.<br />JAN. 23, 2018<br />GlaxoSmithKline and Johnson & Johnson are the best of the big pharmaceutical companies at tackling the growing<br />"superbug" threat, according to an index released Tuesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.<br />Companies were judged by several criteria, said Jayasree K. Iyer, executive director of the Access to<br />Medicines Foundation, which published the new index, called the Antimicrobial Resistance Benchmark.<br />The index, which rates companies on their contributions to preventing the spread of bacteria<br />that are resistant to antibiotics, found Mylan to be the best of the generic drug makers and rated a little-known company, Entasis, as top among biotechnology companies.<br />Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that a global health emergen<br />Drug companies have 28 new antibiotics in late stages of development, but only nine are markedly different from existing ones, Dr. Iyer said.<br />For example, Dr. Iyer said, Glaxo stopped tying sales agents’ bonuses to the volumes they sold<br />and rewarded them for customer service, technical knowledge and how well they help doctors prescribe judiciously.
