Indian startups in race for silver bullet against antibiotic resistance
Biotech companies at the epicentre of the government-backed war against superbugs are joining forces with big pharma in India
Mumbai — Anand Anandkumar’s father was a doctor who spent his career fighting infectious diseases in the South Indian city of Chennai. It was an infection that killed him. In and out of hospital for a failing heart, he picked up a bug resistant to most antibiotics and died of complications from sepsis. The story is a common one in India, where so-called superbugs kill nearly 60,000 newborns every year. The rapid spread of resistant bacteria has now made India the epicentre of a war to prevent a post-antibiotic world, where people would once again die in their thousands of commonplace infections. "We’re on the front line," said Anandkumar, who co-founded Bengaluru-based startup Bugworks Research India a year after his father’s death, to develop new antibiotics. "We’re creating a bullet against organisms that are taking out humanity. Wouldn’t it be nice to get a battleground to test it on that’s really tough?" The theatre of war is all around him. Years of poorly controlled antibiotic...
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.
Subscribe now to unlock this article.
Support BusinessLIVE’s award-winning journalism for R129 per month (digital access only).
There’s never been a more important time to support independent journalism in SA. Our subscription packages now offer an ad-free experience for readers.
Cancel anytime.
Questions? Email helpdesk@businesslive.co.za or call 0860 52 52 00. Got a subscription voucher? Redeem it now.