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
00:26Frouchet, 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 a
00:43Japanese 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 antibiotic
02:43long time ago, you know, I'm a pharmacist. When I started 25 years ago, there was a lot of
02:49prescription of antibiotic for a simple cough. And the more you do you use them, the more the bacteria
02:55can become resistant. They have opportunities for that. So that's one reason. And today the other
03:02reason is that we 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
03:28all what is breast cancer. It's surgery. It's a long run of chemotherapy. And she was almost in
03:35remission from her cancer. And one of the last injection of chemotherapy, she got a superbug at
03:41hospital. What did it mean for her? She had to stay at hospital being infused by a lot of
03:48antibiotics. She even had a stay in incentive care units, and she was not able to work. So all that
03:55mean costs, you know, and if you take to answer your question directly, if you take Europe, every
04:02year, this is 12 billion euro, the cost of antimicrobial resistance, the cost of superbugs.
04:09So 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
04:22people dying. And from now to 2050, it could be 40 million people dying from superbugs. So this
04:32is a lot, really. It means that the costs have a risk to increase dramatically as well. We're
04:39talking about a major public health concern for which we need new antibiotics. So we really
04:48need to act, all of us, collaboratively in order to win this race. This is kind of a race,
04:56you 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
05:08investment is needed? Does it need to come from governments? Does it need to come from private
05:12capital? How do we meet the challenge?
05:15We need industry to invest. And unfortunately, this is not any more sustainable to develop an antibiotic.
05:23Why 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 percent our failure. So and when we talk about 95 percent, yes, our failure
05:42of development, failure of development. Wow. So and when we talk about an antibiotic, its usage must be
05:49limited to avoid resistance. And in our country, the price are quite low. So this is not very
05:55sustainable to develop antibiotics. So that's why we need a new economic model. We need government to
06:04think about and to propose new financing schemes 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 incentive to push for
06:22more research. So it can be grants. It can be investor donation. It can be support for clinical trial.
06:31And there are also what we call the pool incentive, which rewards the company who gave access to a new
06:38antibiotic. The best example is the subscription model in the UK, because this is a delink of the revenue for
06:46the company and the usage of the drug. You know, their usage needs to be limited in order to avoid
06:52resistance. So it's kind of a Netflix model where the company has its revenue and the drug get access
07:00for the patients in the country. And Estelle, at Shinogi, you're developing obviously new AMR therapies.
07:07Given how long drug development takes, as you've said, can innovation realistically move as quickly as
07:13you'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
07:45insights with us on AMR. It's been a pleasure to have you on the show.
07:49Thank you very much.
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