Chicago - Drug makers such as Wyeth were scaling back or eliminating research into antibiotics because of a lack of profit potential, even as infections were becoming more resistant to current treatments, microbiologists said.
At least 10 of the world's top 15 pharmaceutical companies ceased funding, spun off or greatly curtailed research on antibiotics recently, Wyeth researcher Steven Projan told doctors at a meeting in Chicago on Monday.
Companies saw little growth in the $24 billion antimicrobial market and were channelling their money into areas such as arthritis and mental illness, he said.
Many infections were treated with cheap, generic antibiotics, making the market unappealing.
Companies needed public funding and more research on drug resistance to increase their work in combating infectious diseases, which trail only heart disease and cancer as the leading killers in the US.
"It really isn't clear to me why people should invest in these agents now," Projan said at the American Society for Microbiology's annual meeting.
Two recent products, King Pharmaceuticals' Synercid and Pfizer's Zyvox, did not meet commercial expectations.