A decade of incentives to promote antibiotic development and still no viable route to commercial success

It should be motoring to profitability, but nine months after the U.S. launch of its new antibiotic, Zemdri (plazomicin), Achaogen Inc. has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy and is now selling off its assets.

There can be no more potent illustration of the mismatch between antibiotics and market forces, nor of how despite numerous measures to incentivize antibiotic discovery and development, the system isn’t working.