Iranian Journal of Medical Microbiology

For the last few years, antibiotic resistance has become one of the major concerns within medical society. On one hand, pathogens have mostly acquired resistance against the major conventional antibiotics used in the treatment of microbial infections. These included even first-line antibiotics, which are critical in the treatment of severe infections. This catastrophic situation has occurred due to the extensively irresponsible use of antibiotics in humans and veterinary medicines, agriculture, aquaculture and animal breeding. On the other hand, the long absence of novel antibiotic introduction to the market by the pharmaceutical industry has exacerbated the situation. In fact, industrial giants are not interested in, or at least have lost their fascination with, the development of novel formulations. One of the greatest reasons that pharmaceutical industries are not fascinated by antimicrobial development is that the process is a greatly expensive wander since the development of novel antimicrobial drugs costs an estimated $1.5 billion [1] while incomes from the marketing of the antimicrobial agent include nearly $46 million annually. As far as it is known, very few novel antibiotics have been commercialized by the pharmaceutical industries within the last three decades, mostly semi or fully synthetic ones, while the necessity of these biochemicals is urgently felt. As a response to this failure, medical researchers have shifted to other antimicrobial alternatives, including bacteriophages, short peptides, bacteriocins and herbals. However, the potential rapid effectiveness of conventional antibiotics may force researchers to rethink further investigations of microbial antibiotics. But (as always there must be a big “BUT”) why?