00:00This is what we call a broken market. It could be 40 million people dying. We need new antibiotics.
00:13Hello and welcome to The Big Question, a series from Euronews where we speak to some of the most
00:19influential people in the world of business. I'm Angela Barnes and today I'm joined by Estelle
00:26Fruchet, the general manager in France at Shinogi Europe. It's a pleasure to have you with us on
00:33the show today, Estelle. Thank you. It's a pleasure for me. Great. Well, first of all, Estelle, let's
00:37start off by if you could just talk to us about what Shinogi Europe does. Absolutely. Shinogi is
00:43a Japanese company who is developing antimicrobials for almost 150 years and we are committed to the
00:53fight against antimicrobial resistance, AMR, we call it, and it's really a major threat today for
01:01public health but also for the future. Okay, let's call it AMR, as you said, the abbreviated version
01:07there going forward. This essentially is when infections become harder to treat because
01:11medicines stop working. Is that correct? Absolutely. Antimicrobial resistance is a natural process.
01:20Let me explain. You know, a bacteria, the microbe, is a smart agent and they are adapting to their
01:27environment. Okay, so when the body ingests an antibiotic, it will kill the sensitive bacteria
01:36but some will remain. They are the survivor, they are the resistant and they become dominant
01:42and they are what we call the bad bug or the superbugs. How concerned should we be here in Europe
01:48about AMR? It is a major threat and it's really a challenge for today and for the future. So if
01:56you
01:56take the example of a simple woman with an infection of urinary tract, a lot of them cannot be solved
02:05and
02:05cured anymore with the classic antibiotics. So those women need to go to the hospital for infusion.
02:10So if we don't do anything or more, if we do not develop more new drugs, in 2035 there will
02:19be 90%
02:20of the infection with the superbugs. And today it's already worldwide 1.3 million people dying from it.
02:30This is a lot. It's like a whole major city in Europe, like Milan, you know, every year. And it's
02:36an
02:36increasing fact. Why is that the case now? There are many reasons, you know, the overuse of antibiotics
02:43long time ago, you know, I'm a pharmacist. When I started 25 years ago, there was a lot of prescription
02:50of antibiotics for a simple cough. And the more you do you use them, the more the bacteria can become
02:56resistant. They have opportunities for that. So that's one reason. And today the other reason is that
03:03we don't have enough active antibiotic, again, those resistant bacteria.
03:14Let's talk about the economic impact beyond health. Estelle, what is AMR costing Europe today?
03:21Let's take the example of a friend of mine. She was suffering of a breast cancer. So we know all
03:29what is breast cancer. It's surgery. It's a long run of chemotherapy. And she was almost in remission
03:36from her cancer. And one of the last injection of chemotherapy, she got a superbug at hospital.
03:42What did it mean for her? She had to stay at hospital, being infused by a lot of antibiotic.
03:48She even had a stay in incentive care units and she was not able to work. So all that mean
03:56costs,
03:56you know, and if you take to answer your question directly, if you take Europe every year, this is
04:0312 billion euro, the cost of antimicrobial resistance, the cost of superbugs. So this is a lot.
04:10Okay. And if Europe stays on its current path, what could the next 10 to 25 years look like?
04:16If we look at the projections that have been done, you know, today, yearly, this is 1.3 million people
04:23dying. And from now to 2050, it could be 40 million people dying from superbugs. So this is a lot,
04:33really.
04:34It means that the costs have a risk to increase dramatically as well. We're talking about a major public health
04:42concern,
04:42for which we need new antibiotics. So we really need to act all of us collaboratively in order to win
04:54this race.
04:55This is kind of a race, you know, superbugs versus new products. And it's a collaboration to win that race.
05:02We need new antibiotics, you say. But with that comes great investment, of course. How much investment is needed?
05:09Does it need to come from governments? Does it need to come from private capital? How do we meet the
05:14challenge?
05:14We need industry to invest. And unfortunately, this is not any more sustainable to develop an antibiotic.
05:24Why that? This is what we call a broken market. You know, developing a drug takes 10 to 15 years.
05:33It costs 1 billion. And 95% are failure. So, and when we talk about…
05:4095%? Yes, our failure of development. Failure of development. Wow.
05:44So, and when we talk about an antibiotic, its usage must be limited to avoid resistance.
05:52And in our country, the prices are quite low. So this is not very sustainable to develop antibiotics.
05:57So that's why we need a new economic model. We need government to think about and to propose new financing
06:07schemes to become more attractive for the industry.
06:11So what incentives would you say are needed to bring investment back more widely?
06:16Yes, there are different kinds of incentives. There are what we call the push incentives to push for more research.
06:23So it can be grants. It can be investor donations. It can be support for clinical trials. And there are
06:32also what we call the pull incentive, which rewards the company who gave access to a new antibiotic.
06:38The best example is the subscription model in the UK, because this is a delink of the revenue for the
06:46company and the usage of the drug. You know, their usage needs to be limited in order to avoid resistance.
06:53So it's kind of a Netflix model where the company has its revenue and the drug get access for the
07:00patients in the country.
07:01And Estelle, at Shinogi, you're developing, obviously, new AMR therapies. Given how long drug development takes, as you said, can
07:10innovation, though, realistically move as quickly as you'd like it to, to make a difference this decade, for example?
07:18Definitely, yes. If you take WHO, what they say is that today, there is around 15 drugs in the pipeline
07:27against superbugs. We need to have more of that. And we will have more if this area is becoming more
07:34attractive for the company. And it will be through incentives, which make it sustainable.
07:41Estelle, thank you very much for joining us on The Big Question. And thank you for sharing your insights with
07:46us on AMR. It's been a pleasure to have you on the show.
07:49Thank you very much.
Commenti