Efficacy and Treatment Duration: Where is the Tipping Point?

Development pf antibacterials differs in several important ways from drug development in other areas, and the lack of standard dose-finding is just one of them. Dose-finding in its most basic form involves ascending amounts of drug for efficacy and safety; for antibiotics, however, an effective dose can be predicted nowadays Continue reading Efficacy and Treatment Duration: Where is the Tipping Point?

Antibiotic Inhalers Galore (Part 1):  More Combinations and Permutations than a Rubik’s Cube

There is much interest in inhaled antibiotics these days.  Prima facie, the logic for this approach is compelling: Getting the antibiotic (and a lot of it) directly to the site of infection, while avoiding systemic toxicity, sounds like optimized efficacy plus optimized safety combined.  However, some high-profile failures were published Continue reading Antibiotic Inhalers Galore (Part 1):  More Combinations and Permutations than a Rubik’s Cube

Food for Thought, Sprinkled With Small Amounts of Antibiotic Residues

80% of antibiotics worldwide are used in veterinary medicine. With only a minor fraction metabolized to inactive compounds, there are plenty of antibiotics excreted by farm animals in unchanged active form. These antibiotic residues are found in manure, in the soil onto which manure is sprayed, tilled in, or in the Continue reading Food for Thought, Sprinkled With Small Amounts of Antibiotic Residues