The rise of AMR and the threat to medical progress

In an Expert View piece, Karl Rotthier, chief executive of sustainable antibiotics company DSM Sinochem Pharmaceuticals, looks at the growing risk posed to pharma's progress and the world's health by resistant bacteria.

Each year, approximately 14 million people around the world learn they have cancer. We continue to see huge advances in the treatment of this deadly disease, and exciting technological developments – from the development of novel drug therapies to DNA sequencing, the use of big data, and artificial intelligence in the modeling of the molecular mechanisms of cancer – give us real reason for optimism.

However, while much attention is rightly focused on the development of new treatments, a looming public health disaster threatens to undermine cancer treatment at the most basic level: antimicrobial resistance (AMR).