While reducing the use and abuse of antibiotics will go some way to helping mitigate antimicrobial resistance the need for new antimicrobials remains.

The government has in the past proposed schemes to support and encourage the development of new drugs to treat infection,¹⁰ but so far, the number of new medicines developed in the last decade is limited.²⁰

An analysis by WHO in 2025 found that the number of antibacterials in the clinical pipeline decreased from 97 in 2023 to 90 in 2025. Of these, 50 were traditional antibacterial agents and 40 were non-traditional approaches such as bacteriophages, antibodies, and microbiome-modulating agents.

However, of the 90 antibacterials in development, only 15 qualified as innovative and only 5 of the antibacterials were effective against at least one of the WHO ‘critical’ bacterium – critical being the bacterial priority pathogens list’s top risk category.²¹

Developing new antibiotics is perhaps one of the most challenging research tasks in medicine. As authors of a recent paper in NPJ Antimicrobials and Resistance journal put it: ‘antibiotics have to hit moving targets, as bacteria can evolve and adapt so quickly under selective pressure that drug resistance can appear even during a clinical trial, and within patients.

Even if one bacterium survives an antibiotic treatment, an hourly reproduction rate means within one day it can produce over 2²⁴ (ie 16,000,000 or more) offspring. This potential for rapid resistance development creates an additional challenge for antibiotic development that is unique compared to other drug classes.’²²

However, developing new antibiotics is not always a guarantee against resistance. For example, bacteria have already developed resistance to ceftazidime/avibactam, used since 2017 in the NHS to treat some of the most serious infections in hospitals, such as bloodstream infections, typically in individuals who are infected with known multidrug-resistant bacteria or after other antibiotics have failed.

Data from 2016 to 2020, found that 6.3% of bacteria tested in routine surveillance showed resistance to the drug.²³

So, for the time being the importance of health professionals, including community pharmacists, playing their part in ensuring optimal use (and non-use) of antimicrobials, as well as educating customers and fellow health professionals about the impact of antimicrobial resistance and how to reduce it, remains paramount.