Their experimental approach was interesting and hopefully will lead to more discoveries. I feel like this drug is already being overhyped however. It doesn't work for gram negative bacteria, which are responsible for most of the serious and scary multi drug resistant infections.
Also, assuming it doesn't have weird toxicity in people, or unfavourable pharmacokinetics, the author's suggestion that we should give it to everyone is a bit cute, given that it will almost certainly cost north of $200 per day if it gets to market...
Peptide antibiotics can have some issues. A recent new peptide antibiotic called Daptomycin [1] can't be used for pneumonia for example, because it is inhibited by pulmonary surfactant.
Is $200/day a lot for a highly effective antibiotic?
Genuine question--my experience is that a serious hospital stay racks up charges starting in the high five figures (and the sky's the limit), and if there's an antibiotic that's merely a couple thousand a day, it'd certainly be very cost effective.
> my experience is that a serious hospital stay racks up charges starting in the high five figures (and the sky's the limit)
This is USA specific. Day in hospital in Poland costs around 100-400 USD (and that's for people without insurance, so for >95% of population it's free). It's probably worse quality, but still..
I don't understand how you get so outrageus prices for healthcare in USA.
Also, assuming it doesn't have weird toxicity in people, or unfavourable pharmacokinetics, the author's suggestion that we should give it to everyone is a bit cute, given that it will almost certainly cost north of $200 per day if it gets to market...
Peptide antibiotics can have some issues. A recent new peptide antibiotic called Daptomycin [1] can't be used for pneumonia for example, because it is inhibited by pulmonary surfactant.
[1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daptomycin