PULL Incentives

New antimicrobials make limited revenue

There are 2 main reasons why new antimicrobials make limited revenue.

First, because the volume of sales is low: the newest products are usually prescribed as last resort options and work over a short treatment period.

Second, because the price is low, as the market is heavily genericized.

On the other hand, developing new antimicrobials remains expensive. Such market failure severely discourages innovation.

There is now a consensus at the highest political level that financial (PULL) incentives are needed to make antimicrobial development valuable again.

Many PULL mechanisms have been proposed and evaluated in the literature. Some have even been tested (e.g. in Sweden). The UK has launched the first-ever PULL instrument in 2024, and although the contribution is substantial, it will not, alone, fix the problem.

Our Approach

The BEAM Task Force on PULL incentives (BTF-PULL) analyses the policy options and proposes solutions that could make a difference.

To be effective, a PULL incentive must follow a set of elementary principles: